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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30043011">Lady Arya’s Lover</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S/pseuds/Marcus_S'>Marcus_S</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Arya Stark's Multiverse [17]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire &amp; Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Game of Thrones RPF, Lady Chatterley [book]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Contraceptives, Desire, F/M, Guilt, Hat pins, Johnnies, Loss of Virginity, Lust, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Naked Bathing, Penetrative Sex, Plough Monday, Porn With Plot, Sex in the countryside, Sex with flowers, Smut, Urination, Woodstock Festival, dangers of teenage pregnancy, orgasmic dreams</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:47:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>35,853</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30043011</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S/pseuds/Marcus_S</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>1920’s AU continuation from the Christmas panto very much in the vein of DH Lawrence but without such misery.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ramsay Bolton/Sansa Stark, Sandor Clegane/Arya Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Arya Stark's Multiverse [17]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779334</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Arya Stark belongs to GRR Martin but the story remains © Marcus Stanson 2021</p><p>DH Lawrence also deserves some credit as I’ve pillaged his Nottinghamshire dialect quite extensively. I have however resisted the temptation to pillage his erotica/smut/porn; all such material remains my own and you can decide for yourself who’s the better at it if you’re willing to read Lady Chatterley’s Lover. </p><p>For those who haven’t read the pantomime story Tywin Lannister is the Duke of Nottingham and Ned Stark is the Earl of Sherwood.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">Prologue</span>
</p><p> </p><p>1969 - Somewhere north of Ironwood MI USA</p><p> </p><p>“Arya Clegane-Stark the third you are not going to Woodstock”</p><p> </p><p>“Aw mom”</p><p> </p><p>“No Arya, you’re seventeen, you’re proposing traveling nearly twelve hundred miles to attend a rock festival, where there will be drugs and alcohol and men whose only interest will be having sex with you regardless of the consequences or whether you want them to”.</p><p> </p><p>“You could come with me, then I’d be safe”.</p><p> </p><p>“Aside from the question why in he….ck would I want to, frankly I’m not convinced I would be. We are decent God fearin’ folk there are things we do not do and so many of those things will be goin’ on that I’m not sure I would be safe”.</p><p> </p><p>“This is a total bummer, you just don’t dig it do you mom, sooo heavy it’s out of this world. I’ll bet Nana Arya would have gone when she was a girl”.</p><p> </p><p>“If you think that then maybe you need to go talk to your nana some more, then you might change your mind. I’ll bet you haven’t been to see her in weeks, so why not go and, what do you call it, ‘hang out’ with your nana Arya and see what you learn. You’re old enough to know the truth”.</p><p> </p><p>Woa, the truth, what had Arya not been told. Unlike her parents and most of the rest of the family nana Arya, and grampy Sandor before he passed, had been known to be blunt speaking people. In fact when he was angry grampy would relapse into some sort of ‘old English’ way of speaking that Arya was pretty sure let him swear in ways the rest of the family couldn’t understand.</p><p> </p><p>Arya’s mother watched her daughter and knew what she was thinking, well she was going to find out some time. Arya Celgane-Stark senior wasn’t known for her reticence and at some point at family gatherings someone would say something and she would make a comment about ‘it didn’t do me any harm’ probably in that aristocratic British accent, she called 'cut glass' that she liked to use when she wanted to put you in your place. Mom thought she’d offer her daughter just a little temptation.</p><p> </p><p>“You can take my car and stop the weekend. If the weather holds up you can go swimming in the lake, by yourself”.</p><p> </p><p>She knew that alone in the little ‘harbour’ on the lakeside Arya would go skinny dipping and she hoped that this would be near enough to ‘letting it all hang out’ for her daughter.</p><p> </p><p>“And what’s to stop me driving all the way to New York State if you let me have the car”.</p><p> </p><p>“The fact it’s only got half a tank of gas in it and you’re goin’ to nana’s with no more than five dollars for emergencies in your pocket”.</p><p> </p><p>Realising she was probably beaten for now, Arya did her best to lose with ill grace so as not to make her mother feel too good.</p><p>“Well if you’re forcin’ me I suppose I have to” and she stomped upstairs to pack a small suitcase with a single change of clothing and deliberately no swimsuit.</p><p> </p><p>-------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>About an hour later she was virtually on the shore of Lake Superior driving slowly up a single track rutted and bumpy lane and watching what all the family called ‘the mansion’ but nana always called ‘the hall’ appear from out of the trees. Built in the late 1920’s when grampy Sandor had made enough money to live where he liked and how he liked it was a typical timber built property much like any other in the area, except for its size. At Christmas two years ago they’d successfully slept 36 family in it without using anything but the bedrooms proper. Admittedly Arya had ended up sharing with three cousins all girls around her age, so two had got the bed and two had had to make do with camping beds, but she knew no one else in the county with a house this large.</p><p> </p><p>Arya rolled the car to a stop outside the kitchen door and hadn’t got out of the car before her nana came out of the kitchen to greet her. Small trim and spry, with dark hair cut short, nana Arya always looked like she was going somewhere to do something. Arya was taken into the kitchen and offered tea or juice, she chose juice. She sat down at the table and nana sat opposite with her trademark cup of tea.</p><p> </p><p>“I suppose mom’s been on the phone so you know why I’m here”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes and I might add that I entirely agree with her, you are far too young to go to such an event alone and before you say it, no I would not, and would not have been allowed to, go when I was your age, but since you mother has sent you here to be persuaded not to go by my ‘sorry and precautionary tale’ I shall tell you my story and let you decide if it justifies the title that most of the rest of the family give it. In fact I will do better than tell you it I will give you the book I wrote about it and was never allowed to publish, because ever your grandfather thought it was totally unacceptable”.</p><p> </p><p>“Wow nana what’s in it. I mean grampy Sandor, God rest him, was not a man to pretend to be something he wasn’t. I remember him telling my father once, something about father and you having always had money, but grampy didn’t and so he wasn’t always impressed by what money bought”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes well this isn’t about money and in other ways grampy Sandor was the more conventional person and I was the wayward child. You put your things in the first bedroom down the west corridor and then come and join me in the library. That will give me time to find the papers I need and you can start reading while I make us some lunch”.</p><p> </p><p>-------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Five minutes later Arya returned to the library to find her grandmother organising a stack of paper.</p><p> </p><p>“Here it is, I typed it up when I thought about getting it published, so you won’t have to read my handwriting in faded ink, but you need to understand that it’s written like a story so there are bits in about people like my sister and father that are partly guess work, but pretty much everything about grampy and me is accurate, not word for word, but as near as ‘dunna matter’ as grampy might have said”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya picked up the first set of bound pages and started to read.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="u">Chapter 1</span>
</p><p> </p><p>January 1923 – location Elmley Hall historical seat of the Earls of Sherwood.</p><p> </p><p>Well they’d got Christmas over and their Christmas guests, the Lannister’s, off their property without too much ado after a little upset at the Christmas pantomime. New Year was a Scottish celebration to the Earl so beyond wishing each other ‘Happy New Year’ in the morning little happened on the estate before Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Night. Then the family was expected to turn out and watch the Molly dancers and Fool go round the nearest villages to the hall. The tradition was getting a bit careworn with most of Ned’s tenants now working down the three pits on his land, and thus getting only two days off at Christmas. It had also been suggested that Molly dancing was unchristian and more to the point no longer popular with the plough boys, some of whom had come to blows over who would and would not be dressing up as a woman. The local Morris troops were suggesting that they could take over next year, still unchristian but no cross dressing.</p><p> </p><p>All these factors made little difference to the impact on the family, Monday 8<sup>th</sup> January, dress up warmly, gentlemen pocket a hip flask and walk down to Walton, then on to Elmley, Oxover and finally Holcroft before returning to the house. It was a decent walk totalling about ten miles, so with stops a good five to six hours of the day were taken up. Lunch was obtained at the Elmley Arms in Elmley, usually consisting of fresh bread, a Melton pork pie, some Stilton and ale for the men.</p><p> </p><p>The whole process had gone without a hitch until they arrived at the pub. Food was distributed equitably, but when it came to drinks the dispute commenced</p><p> </p><p>“A Pint of Bitter”.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll have a small port and lemon like your mother, or a <em>very</em> small sherry”.</p><p> </p><p>“No father I’ll have a pint of bitter”.</p><p> </p><p>Ned looked at his wife who threw up her hands, “She’s your daughter she doesn’t get it from me”.</p><p> </p><p>Ned thought of Granny Tully and might have disputed this fact, but he’d pretty much had enough of his younger daughter, “Go on then a pint of bitter it is, but if you make a fool of yourself, don’t expect sympathy, in fact if you make of fool of me by association expect consequences”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya collected a pint from the bemused Landlord, who wasn’t sure if he could serve a lady a glass with a handle but he only had straights in half pints so had had no choice, and went and sat down next to her sister on the end of the bench of seats the family were occupying. Her bum had barely touched wood before her sister Sansa started</p><p> </p><p>“Arya you can’t, you’ll never get back to the house”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll nip into one of the pubs in Oxover or Holcroft”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I hope that works, wee yourself in public and I think daddy will confine you to the house for a month, Nymeria will think you’ve died”.</p><p> </p><p>“I can always go behind a tree if it’s really desperate, now drink your port and lemon”.</p><p> </p><p>Sansa subsided in silence.</p><p> </p><p>------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Arya was fine at Oxover, but as they approached Holcroft she could feel the pressure on her bladder mounting; which was when the problem started. It was 3:03 PM when they arrived at the village and the pub had shut. By the time the dancers moved on Arya was beginning to feel like she’d be joining in the steps. She hung back as they left the village and then Sansa fell back to join her.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you OK”.</p><p> </p><p>“The bloody pub was shut wasn’t it, slow down and let them get ahead, when we get to that next copse I’m going over the wall”.</p><p> </p><p>“I told you..”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh shut up smarty pants, five minutes earlier we’d have been OK, it was that stupid molly fooling about on the road that we all stopped to have a laugh at that slowed us down. Anyway it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve squatted behind a wall, nor you”.</p><p> </p><p>“I gave that sort of thing up when I grew up, it’s alright for a little girl, but when you start to become a woman it’s not proper”.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s all that matters to you isn’t it, what’s proper”.</p><p> </p><p>Sansa lapsed into silence, they came to a gate just short of the copse and Arya opened it and went through. “See there’s even a gate so no climbing I’ll just nip along the wall into the trees, see you in a minute”.</p><p> </p><p>Actually Arya was putting a brave face on a serious situation, she was clenching her muscles hard and she sprinted down the wall and into the copse. By the time she got into the trees she wasn’t going to be fussy where she stopped so once behind a tree she hauled her skirts up, yanked desperately to get her knickers down and dropped onto her haunches, just in time to let a monstrous stream pour out of her. The relief both physical and mental was considerable for about ten seconds. Then she heard a noise as a man approached from behind her. She was on the verge of trying to clamp down on herself so she could move, although where to she wasn’t sure when she realised he’d stopped and she could hear more running water. He too was recycling some of the Worksop and Retford Brewery’s finest. She couldn’t turn round and besides that would definitely let him see her so she held still, remembering the instructions from the ghillie when she had been stalking in Scotland last summer; ‘animals see movement far easier than they see shapes, keep still and you might a be a foot or two away, move and they’ll see you a mile off’. The man had certainly been right concerning deer so Arya froze and waited until she heard him move away.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor Clegane was not a happy man, but in the sea of shit that was his new life, today was marginally better than most. Having been sacked from his position as The Duke of Nottingham’s valet he had had to take on farm labouring work. Today however he’d had a pint or three on this rural jolly and he was now enjoying the simple pleasure of emptying his bladder. As he stood their letting the stream flow he realised that ahead of him behind the next tree was someone else and since they were squatting it was a woman. Sandor was on the verge of looking away, he wouldn’t like to be watched and he wasn’t going to subject some innocent woman to the indignity, when he realised that it was a small woman well dressed and that she had to be with the dancing party, which left only one possible person it could be, the bloody Stark girl. Well she’d cost him his job so in this case he’d make an exception to being a gentleman.</p><p> </p><p>Arya had just about emptied her bladder when she realised that she could hear raindrops right behind her. Since it was cold and clear with no clouds in the sky, she then realised that couldn’t be raindrops, either she was too well hidden or the bastard was trying to piss on her. Anger overcame modesty and caution; she stood up, turned round and shouted.</p><p> </p><p>“Look where you’re pointing it you peasant”.</p><p> </p><p>Bloody hell she’d turned round, he hadn’t expected that. He had no choice but to lower the stream, which was dwindling to a dribble anyway. He now realised he was in the position of needing to perform the final function of a male urination break, shaking the drops off the end, while exposing himself to Lady Arya Stark second daughter of the Earl of Sherwood aged, he hoped, over sixteen and, he knew, of vengeful spirit. Sandor’s military training kicked in, when in doubt attack, suddenly.</p><p> </p><p>“I wouldna need to look if you werena squattin’ like a little tart. Other ladies of yer quality know better than t’expose thisens int’ woods”. Defiantly he gave himself a good shake and tucked himself back in his trousers.</p><p> </p><p>Arya’s anger boiled over, just for a second he’d had the decency to look slightly embarrassed, if he’d played his cards right they could have both made it out to be an embarrassing mistake, lots of ‘terribly sorrys’ and walk way in opposite directions nothing said, but then he’d called her a tart. She had no idea who he was behind the blacked up face, but she wasn’t taking that from anyone duke or dustman. Like all good Stark girls, trained by Granny Tully, she had a hat pin with her, on this occasion actually in her cloche hat since it was a windy day; out it came and she made a dash towards him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>And fell flat on her face as she tripped over her knickers that were still wrapped round her ankles. She hit the ground hard, the pin flew out of her hands, her head banged a tree and then she heard him laugh.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor had been in half a mind whether to run, which looked incriminating if anyone else got involved, or let her come and then grab her wrist and remove the hat pin. She’d used a hat pin on him once before, but that had been from behind and it wasn’t going to happen again, when the decision was taken out of his hands by her falling flat on the ground at his feet. As her body went down her feet kicked up and the cause of the fall became obvious, her knickers were still around her ankles. Sandor turned away, a good belly laugh bursting from him. He was surprised she didn’t reply, past experience had made him expect at least invective and abuse, but he walked away through the tree to rejoin his new agricultural friends in silence.</p><p> </p><p>The reason he walked away in silence was that Arya had as good as knocked herself out. She lay on the floor listening to the laughter fade with a rather strange sensation of here/not here in her head and no inclination to try and stand up. She didn’t know how long it lasted, but then she heard another voice, her sister’s.</p><p> </p><p>“Arya are you alright,……..Arya Oh!”.</p><p> </p><p>Sansa had given her sister as long as she might reasonably need to pass a gallon of water and then started to get worried. The rest of the part were now a good quarter mile past the copse except that two  men had come out of the trees and run off after their friends up the road, obviously they too had stopped to relive themselves. Idly she wondered if the man in molly costume had squatted as she would or just lifted the fronts of his dress and remained standing. Regardless Arya had been too long so she climbed over the wall with some difficulty and started to work her way through the trees until she came upon her sister lying on the ground with her knickers round her ankles unconscious.</p><p> </p><p>Oh gods the worst had happened one of those men had attacked Arya. She ran to her sister, who turned her head and groaned.</p><p> </p><p>“Arya are you alright, who did this to you”.</p><p> </p><p>“Nnnng, No one, shit that hurts, help me up will you”.</p><p> </p><p>Sansa knelt down and helped Arya roll over and sit up, she groaned again and went distinctly white so Sansa held her while she looked at the cut on her head. It wasn’t deep but it had produced a largish clot of blood in the edge of her hair. They stayed like that for a couple of minutes and then Arya had obviously recovered herself because she let out a stream of foul language that Sansa wasn’t even going to try and understand, but definitely included he ‘F’ word at least three times. When the tirade stopped she looked at her sister.</p><p> </p><p>“Please take my knickers off completely and then help me get into a squatting position”.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes because otherwise I may wee myself, clearly one pint of bitter goes a long way”.</p><p> </p><p>Sansa reached forward and pulled Arya’s knickers off from round her ankles and then turned back and helped her lever herself up into a squatting position. A hissing sound made it obvious what Arya was doing. With a sort of morbid fascination Sansa checked her sister’s underwear, but they were dry.</p><p> </p><p>“Right now help me stand up and lean me against the tree while I get used to the idea of standing up, my head hurts like blazes and if I move it suddenly, I’m pretty sure that things will get woozy again”.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on then gently does it, up you come. There now are you OK”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a few seconds, “Yes I don’t think I’m going to fall down so you can let go. Are my knickers dry”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes”</p><p> </p><p>“One small mercy, then be a dear and bend down and thread them over my feet and get them up to at least my knees please. I may be able to bend down but if I straighten up I’m pretty sure I’ll fall down immediately afterwards”.</p><p> </p><p>Sansa knelt at her sisters feet and slowly and carefully Arya picked up one foot at a time and got them in the leg holes, then Sansa slid them as far up as she dare, which was actually about half way up Arya’s thigh’s.</p><p> </p><p>“Can you manage from there, only you’re my sister but”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes I know you have a thing about people’s bodies. The trouble is with these old fashioned long dresses mother made us wear I’m not sure how I’m going to get them up unless you lift the dress”.</p><p> </p><p>Doing her best not to look Sansa raised the hems of her sister’s dress and Arya did a sort of squat to get her hands down and managed to pull her knickers up. “If only I’d listened to Granny Tully”.</p><p> </p><p>“What”.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s never worn knickers, says she prefers to ‘air the parts’. If I’d listened to her I’d not be in this mess now”.</p><p> </p><p>“Arya, Sansa where are you and what are you playing at!”, Ned’s voice boomed through the trees.</p><p> </p><p>Arya looked at her sister “Just in time”.</p><p> </p><p>“What, daddy”.</p><p> </p><p>“No me getting my knickers on, the explanation can now be a lot shorter”.</p><p> </p><p>Ned and Catelyn had finally realised their daughters weren’t with the party and Ned had set off back to find them with his wife’s words following him, “Don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill dear, it’ll only be a call of nature”. That didn’t alter the fact that it was a nuisance and since the cause was undoubtedly the pint of bitter he was going to make sure that a point was made. When however he found his daughters his anger quickly turned to concern as he saw the blood on Arya’s head. That didn’t stop his tone form being one of resignation.</p><p> </p><p>“What did you do”.</p><p> </p><p>“I stopped in the trees to answer a call of nature and then tripped over a root as I was walking back out. I’ve banged my head and I’m feeling a bit dizzy, but Sansa’s helped me stand up and I think I’m ready to start walking home”.</p><p> </p><p>“Pissed yourself”.</p><p> </p><p>“Daddy you can’t…”</p><p> </p><p>“Sansa, human bladder muscles are funny things. During the war I saw men piss themselves with fear, because they’d been knocked out and other things I don’t want to go into. If Arya’s got wet knickers she needs to get them off in this cold”.</p><p> </p><p>“My knickers are perfectly dry father”.</p><p> </p><p>“Lucky girl. Right then one foot at a time and one of us on each side until you’re out on the road again”.</p><p> </p><p>Which was how they proceeded even when they were out on the road. After a quarter mile it was obvious Arya was not going to walk home so Sansa walked briskly on to Holcroft and found a farmer who brought a cart out and helped her father lift her onto the back, where the family all remained as the famer trundled them all back to the house, although not without another break for Arya to relieve herself. Once back at the house father and a coachman lowered Arya to ground and Sansa, Catelyn and one of the lady’s maids got her upstairs to her room.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The doctor was called and pronounced Arya otherwise uninjured, which was obvious to everybody and then observed that head injuries were unpredictable so she should stay in bed for at least a whole day after any dizzy spell and not ride for at least a week after that or while ever she had any headaches.</p><p> </p><p>Ned, after muttering about the money he’d spent on a diagnosis he could have done himself, left Arya’s room with a final parting shot</p><p> </p><p>“And you’ll drink a small port and lemon like your mother in future”.</p><p> </p><p>Sansa and Catelyn realised Arya was on the mend when this provoked her to stick her tongue out at Ned’s departing back. Despite this Catelyn ordered Sansa to remain with her sister for the rest of the evening, food would be sent up from the kitchens at dinner time.</p><p> </p><p>Arya’s head still ached and she really wanted to just lie back and if not sleep then at least just rest. She knew however that this was not going to happen and sure enough her mother had barely left the room before Sansa was right next to her whispering in her ear.</p><p> </p><p>“Now, the truth, not the flannel you gave father, you did not trip over a root, in fact I’ve got a suspicion you tripped over your knickers, so why would you be stood up with your knickers round your ankles and then try and walk”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya knew she wasn’t going to fob Sansa off, however touchy she might be about bodies and the things they did, particularly in areas normally covered by clothing; Sansa was the county’s greatest collector of gossip. Arya’s one consolation was that she would probably not pass this gossip on since it involved talking about the aforementioned bodily functions. So she began at the beginning and forced Sansa to keep quiet until she had reached the end.</p><p> </p><p>For once Sansa was lost for words, the list of unladylike occurrences was so long she couldn’t make her mind up which to be most upset about.</p><p> </p><p>“Not got anything to say”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know where to start”</p><p> </p><p>Realising it was going to happen one way or another Arya decided to help her sister out.</p><p> </p><p>“So starting at the beginning, yes, he probably saw at least one cheek of my bum from behind but nothing more. No, I don’t think he actually got anything on me. No it wasn’t an attempted rape, he had his John Thomas in his hand and it wasn’t stuck up and stiff, he was just taking a wee. No he didn’t attempt to get any closer to me, in fact once I turned round he seemed keen to go, he knew who I was and he knew what would happen if father had turned up, thrashed if he was lucky, prison if not. You don’t get much sympathy in front of the bench when it’s the daughter of one of their own, and he’d be out of a job and whatever tied house or cottage he’s in as well. Everything after that was really entirely my own stupid fault for getting aggressive and not thinking”.</p><p> </p><p>“And you’re sure you don’t recognise him. He’s got to be one of daddy’s tenants and you’re the one who goes and mixes with them. I think he knew you. You said it was a while before the drops got closer, like he was just weeing and the he realised you were there and decided to give you, well you know”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes I do know Sansa. He was a big man and not that young, thirties or forties, but his face was covered in black like they all were, I’d recognise his..”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well that’s not going to help because you’re unlikely to ever see it again”.</p><p> </p><p>“Shame even limp it was obvious there was plenty of it”.</p><p> </p><p>“Arya I wish you wouldn’t say things like that, it’s not nice and besides you’re only a little girl you might not be able to cope with a bigger man”.</p><p> </p><p>“You know Sansa you’re a bit of a hypocrite, first you don’t want me to talk about something, but then you want to get your opinion in on what I mustn’t talk about. Besides Granny Tully told me a baby’s head’s as big as a cats so I can’t imagine any man can actually be too big”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes but you know the noises mother made having Rickon, I think we’re supposed to find making babies a bit less painful than that”.</p><p> </p><p>“True, she did pretty well scream the house down, but cook said to me you and I weren’t half as much trouble so it was just that Rickon was the wrong way round or something”.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve talked to cook about that sort of thing”.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s not quite how it works. I’m around places like the kitchen and the servants don’t speak to me because they’re not allowed to until I speak to them, but they make remarks to no one in particular in the knowledge I can’t help but hear. I went down to ask for some more hot water from the copper to be taken up because all the maids were doing something else so while I was there cook just said a couple of things, I think to try and make me worry less”.</p><p> </p><p>“No one ever does that with me”.</p><p> </p><p>“Because you aren’t in the places for it to happen, I’ll bet you could get lost in the pantries, you certainly don’t know which ones which, meat, veg, wine, spirits do you”.</p><p> </p><p>“So is that it you do this to get at the drinks”.</p><p> </p><p>“No silly, the butler keeps the drinks locked away I just have a quick snifter from the decanters in the dining room”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya was quietly pleased she’d got Sansa off the subject of the man in the woods. She needed time by herself to decide how she felt about it all because she was sure she and her sister didn’t have the same views on the event. Sadly she was disappointed.</p><p> </p><p>“So back to the important issue, somewhere not too far away is a man who had had at least a glimpse of your derriere and who doesn’t like you much, despite your past attempts to be ‘a friend of  the common man’ and you have no idea who he is”.</p><p> </p><p>“And this is a problem because”.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s just wrong, it’s not how men and women are supposed to have physical relations, even if they’re the same social class, let alone you with one of father’s tenants”.</p><p> </p><p>“And the last point is the important one to you isn’t it. One day I’m going to let a farmhand or a blacksmith give me a thorough seeing to, a three johnnie session, just to prove to you that the peerage of England won’t collapse once it’s happened”.</p><p> </p><p>“You wouldn’t dare”, immediately the words were out of her mouth Sansa realised they were a mistake, “No I don’t mean that, I’m not daring you, please don’t, not just because of what I said”.</p><p> </p><p>“Relax, I’m pretty sure no decent man would just do it and I’m not offering myself to the sort of animal that will mount anything he sees. Now mind out and pass me the gazunder”.</p><p> </p><p>Sadly the act of squatting down and standing up proved that Arya’s head was far from recovered and when Sansa had stopped her falling over and got her back into bed she did agree that she could probably do to have someone in her room overnight ‘just in case’. Awkwardly this meant that she had to keep talking to Sansa until they both went to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>---------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>In the meantime the object of their curiosity had completed the round of dancing and drinking and retired to the two room terraced cottage he’d been allotted at a single farm labourer, where he’d washed the blacking off his face, eaten a simple supper and gone to bed. Sleep however would not come. The image of the round smooth flesh of Arya’s rear kept floating before his eyes and then the look on her face as she eyed up his John Thomas. It hadn’t been a look of fear, more interest; still it was unlikely she’d seen a lot of men. At her age and in her class chance encounters with naked men, as opposed to her much younger brothers, were unlikely. Common country girls would see boys and men using a tree long before they reached puberty, but Arya, no it was possible that that was the first adult member she’d ever seen. Now there were two reasons he wasn’t going to get to sleep because although he’d managed to avoid responding to her attention at the time the idea in his head had produced a swelling he knew he would have act on.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor was a countryman, but there was a strong line of Methodism in his family that took a fairly puritanical view of anything to do with sex that wasn’t directly connected to reproduction. So despite the fact that the war had entirely destroyed any faith he might have had he still felt reluctant to enjoy the action he must take. That reluctance was complicated by his feelings about Arya Stark, there was the hatred based on the fact that he was sure she was a significant part of why he had been fired, fighting the admiration for, to put it bluntly, her balls and now his appreciation of at least a small part of her physically attractive body. Well if it had to be done it, and it did, it was best done quickly and that was easiest achieved if he focussed his mind on that little curve of white flash and those enquiring eyes while he energetically rubbed himself to completion, soaking an old sock, long past wear on his feet but useful for enclosing himself and catching his cum, before lapsing into sleep.</p><p> </p><p>---------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Arya spent another three days in bed before the dizziness passed, but after the first two she felt safe enough to let her sister sleep in her own bed and refused to allow a maid to remain in her room during the day; which usefully left her that day to return to the subject of the man with a big John Thomas.</p><p> </p><p>Firstly she realised she had to decide whether he had seen her and intended to get her wet or was just ‘spraying it about a bit’. It wasn’t that many years ago that she had had to occasionally supervise her youngest brother emptying his bladder and he had certainly enjoyed waving it around. It didn’t seem inconceivable to Arya that full grown men retained a childish delight in doing the same. They certainly retained other childish habits into adulthood.</p><p> </p><p>If it was a designed act it also meant that there was a man in the area who disliked her, quite a lot. She certainly had no idea who he was or why he should have such a dislike if it was personal. She went out of her way to treat the servants and the other locals as equals whenever possible. It was possible of course that he was some sort of Marxist or Socialist who disliked her simply because of her class. In modern times this couldn’t be avoided, she was who she was, she couldn’t swap mothers and become an ordinary girl overnight, life just wasn’t like that.</p><p> </p><p>So on balance she pretty much had to write the spraying off as most likely a random act.</p><p> </p><p>That then left the issue of the accusation of her being a tart and not behaving like a lady; along with the man’s unwillingness to apologise in some way and the way he had rather brazenly waved himself at her. That was harder to put down to accidental behaviour, which lead back to the possibility that the initial spray had also been deliberate. Again she wracked her brain to think of who she might have upset and could come up with only two names, Joffrey Baratheon who it clearly wasn’t, he was too small in every department, and the Duke of Nottingham’s valet Clegane.</p><p> </p><p>Clegane certainly would fit the bill in being a large man and maybe she hadn’t taken too hard a look at his face under the blacking because she just might just have been taking a good look at what he had in his hand, but Clegane would be wherever the Duke was, not cavorting about in the countryside on her father’s estate. Besides it had been obvious at Christmas that he did not enjoy theatricals, his performance in the pantomime had been wooden at best and sullen at worst. Oh the whole thing was too confusing, it was literally making her head hurt again.</p><p> </p><p>Arya lay back and tried to relax, think of the more positive things, she had got her father to buy her a pint, although it would be another struggle to get him to buy her a second; she had not wet herself, although she had to admit she had come dangerously close, clearly drinking bitter had to be approached with some caution and finally she had had a good look at an item she hoped to see more of in the future. Her previous exposure to the male appendage had been limited to classical Greek statues or their copies and between the ones with a fig leaf and the ones which had just been vandalised with a chisel she had seen no more than four or five examples of manhood and they had all looked fairly small, in particular quite short. Now however she had two real life examples to go on, the young stable lad, who had been long and quite rigid, but somewhat thin and the Mystery Member of Holcroft Copse, which although soft had clearly been the largest example she had yet observed.</p><p> </p><p>It was also clear that men bore no resemblance to animals. An easily overexcited Shaggy Dog had mounted her leg more than once in their youth and the stallion her father had taken her to watch in the stables had considerable similarities, except for size, to the dog. Men clearly looked somewhat different.</p><p> </p><p>Well in one way she was now in a better mood, but it was hard to say she felt relaxed. Her headache had mercifully gone only to be replaced by a sensation in her lower belly, a sensation she couldn’t put a name to but which somehow felt unfulfilled.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By the end of the second week of January, Arya was up about and her usual perky and endearing, or overactive and irritating, depending on your viewpoint, little self. As a result on Friday afternoon her mother sent her into Walton to take some food round to a pair of elderly widows, with instructions to spend some time at each house to give them someone to talk to and to make sure they were both as well as their advanced age would allow them to be.</p><p> </p><p>Arya was keen to get out of the house for the first time in five days, the walk was no more than a leg stretcher down a metalled road and the two old women cheerful souls, who appreciated both the food she brought and the time she would spend listening while they chattered on about how things weren’t the same since the war and the old queen had died. Arya did wonder if this juxtaposition meant that the war they were referring to had been the Second Boer War of 1899-1902 rather than the Great War.</p><p> </p><p>This week however Gertie had something else on her mind, the new man next door.</p><p> </p><p>“’E looks horrible, ‘is face is all burnt and scarred, I can barely look at him. It’s sad, ’e’s such a nice man and so well spoken an’ all”.</p><p> </p><p>Gertie rambled on, but Arya’s mind had been jolted, desperately she tried to regain her concentration.</p><p> </p><p>“’e’s all alone, it’s a shame, a big lad like ‘im and all t’ gals wi’aht men after t’war. ‘e’d look a lot ‘appier if ‘e’d a girl to keep ‘isn bed waarm, t’aint right ‘im being by ‘isen”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya tried to staunch the flow with a question, “So he moved in recently Gertie”.</p><p> </p><p>“T’ day arter New Year”.</p><p> </p><p>“And does anyone know him, where he came from”.</p><p> </p><p>“Nay, not in’t village any’ow. tha fayther’s agent‘d know though”.</p><p> </p><p>Yes he would, she thought he was called Taylor and the man was injured so it would be easy to make it seem like she was ‘just checking he doesn’t need any help’; although if he was fit enough to be taken on as a farm hand he was hardly a cripple. She didn’t care how odd it sounded, this could not be just a coincidence, a big man with a burned face turns up just in time for Plough Monday. Suddenly she realised she’d left out the most important question.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you know his name”.</p><p> </p><p>“Nay ‘e’s away long afore ah’m up. At my age the’s no need t’ rush, so sometimes ahm not out a bed afore seven and ‘e’s long gone b’then”.</p><p> </p><p>“And at the weekends”.</p><p> </p><p>“’E dunna seem t’be around, me’be when spring comes ahl see ‘im in t’garden, ‘e might as well ‘ave mine, the’s no way ah can work it”.</p><p> </p><p>“He could do it for you and you could share the crop”.</p><p> </p><p>“I couldn’t ask ‘im fer that, that’s charity”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I shall ask him for you, not phrasing it that way but I’ll come round on Saturday afternoon and speak to him, offer him the use of your garden and suggest it would be nice if you got some of the produce”.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s good a yer”.</p><p> </p><p>They chattered on for another hour and Arya said her goodbyes and walked home. A plan was forming, she would use Gertie as an excuse to talk to him, make sure he was Sandor and……and there her plan sort of fell apart, what would she do next, accuse him of trying to wee on her in the woods, that was hardly a good opening gambit. Ask after his health, she’d get told he was fine; enquire why he was here, that had to be the most stupid option. He was here because he’d lost his job with the Duke of Nottingham and would be very unlikely to want to discuss why.</p><p> </p><p>She was not to be put off however so on Saturday afternoon she walked into Walton and up to his cottage door and rapped loudly on it. She had a good reason to be there and she would see what happened next. The answer was a resounding nothing, she looked into the front window, the view was obscured by net curtains but it looked very much as if the room was empty.</p><p> </p><p>She was about to give up when Gertie’s upstairs window opened.</p><p> </p><p>“’E’s in’t garden M’lady”.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you Gertie, I’ll go round the back”.</p><p> </p><p>She walked back to the end of the row and down the twitchel. At the back of the properties a narrow set of cobbles ran across the back of all the houses. They were newly laid after her father had had running water and a sewer installed so that each house could have a plumbed privy at their back door to replace the old long drop earth ones at the bottom of each garden. Now instead of a fifty yard sprint to the bottom of the garden and unless you put some effort into using lime a degree of a smell, you took two steps and when you’d finished pulled the chain. This didn’t mean the abolition of the gazunder any more than it had at The Hall as the noise made by the high level cistern’s flush meant that its use in the middle of the night would wake the neighbours.</p><p> </p><p>Three houses down and there he was digging his plot. She came to stop still on the cobbles.</p><p> </p><p>“Excuse me”.</p><p> </p><p>He looked paused for a moment then his face made it clear he had recognised her. He punched the spade into the ground and walked up to within an inch of her face. His voice was low, but she heard every word.</p><p> </p><p>“Tha can get outer ‘ere tha’ false little bitch”</p><p> </p><p>“Pardon”</p><p> </p><p>“Tha ‘eard me, I want not’in’ to do with thee, costing me ma job then trying ter attack me wi’ an ‘at pin a second time”.</p><p> </p><p>“I think for groping my sister you deserved it the first time”.</p><p> </p><p>“’Appen if she’d objected I might a ‘ave but she’d already ‘ad ‘er ‘ands on one of yer footmen and when I slid my ‘and gently across ‘er rump she pushed ‘ersen back inta it. She were enjoying ‘erself, we were both just ‘aving a bit o’ fun, but you ‘ad to get all serious and go stabbing folk, so when yer ‘ad a second go I was abaht to tak’ it off yer and give yer a dose of yer own medicine, but then yer fell ower yer knickers so I just ‘ad a good laugh an’ left yer to it”.</p><p> </p><p>“I knocked myself out I suppose you think that’s funny to. I still can’t ride because of the concussion”.</p><p> </p><p>He stopped, clearly reassessing what to say next “Ay well ah’m sorry ‘baht that, I didn’a do it, yer did it to y’usen but if ah’d realised you’d ‘it y’usen that ‘ard I’d a stopped and made sure tha were OK. That still leaves t’ matter of me job wi’ ‘Is Grace”.</p><p> </p><p>“I know nothing about that”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well it’s funny it ‘appened t’ day we got ‘ome from yer place. ‘E’d no other reason ter get rid o’ me. ‘Is Grace may be a total cynical bastard but t’ pay wer a’right and living in t’ouse were comfy enough. Now ah’m in a field six an’ an ‘alf days a week whatever t’ weather and living ‘ere”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I had no direct hand in you losing your job. I don’t know if my father said something or the Duke saw things and took offence. Did he not say why you were being dismissed”.</p><p> </p><p>“Dunna be daft, the likes of ‘im dunna explain things to the likes of me, it were ‘ Clegane your services are no longer required, you may have a month’s pay in lieu of notice, but clear your room today’. Just like that, out on me ear. I were lucky, I know yer agent Taylor from t’ war an’ ‘e saw me right, but as ah say it’s t’ best o’ a bad job”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya realised everything was not going to plan, not that she’d had a plan, but it certainly was not for things to take this turn. She decided to change tack in the hope of getting a better result.</p><p> </p><p>“As I said I’m sorry about your job, but I do have something to discuss with you. Mrs Holmes your neighbour” and she pointed to the cottage in question “Has asked me to tell you that you may cultivate her garden if you wish as she doesn’t have the strength and I’d like to ask you politely, would you mind letting her have some of the produce. I’m sure she doesn’t eat much and”</p><p> </p><p>“tha don’t ‘ave to ask, she can ‘ave owt she wants, it’s ‘er garden first. Ah ‘aven’t got round to goin’ an’ saying ‘ello and she ‘ain’t come out either; is she stuck in ‘er bed”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, but she’s not that mobile and gardening is definitely beyond her”.</p><p> </p><p>“Then ah’ll pop in later and see she’s OK”.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s very kind of you”.</p><p> </p><p>“Nay that’s just good manners and a bit of respect for t’ elderly”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya was pleased to see he was now standing opposite her and they were conversing in a reasonable tone.</p><p> </p><p>“Well as far as I know you and I are the only two people she sees regularly, so I still think it’s kind of you”.</p><p> </p><p>“And d’tha honestly come of yer own choice or are yer sent by tha mother as part of yer ‘duties as one of the family’”.</p><p> </p><p>“If we’re being brutally honest I’m sent down here when my mother wants me out of the house because she finds me a ‘disruptive influence’, so you can decide for yourself how you view that”.</p><p> </p><p>He looked at her after that comment then turned round and picked up his spade. She thought he was going to turn his back on her to show her the conversation was over, but he just started digging a new spit where he could work and talk to her. “Ay I can imagine yer ‘ard to manage and yer need to learn to stop and think afore yer speak and before yer do owt”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya realised this was another reference to the hat-pin attack. “I shall question my sister further and if it turns out I owe you a further apology you shall have one”. Arya also determined to speak to her father to try and make sure he hadn’t had a hand in Clegane’s dismissal.</p><p> </p><p>“Well that’s good of yer M’lady” and he returned to his digging with greater vigour.</p><p> </p><p>Arya realised she was getting cold and it was a about the right time in the afternoon “Would you like me to make some tea”.</p><p> </p><p>He looked up “I would, but I’m still getting misen sorted so ah’ve no kettle yet”.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you drinking”.</p><p> </p><p>“Beer mostly, just ‘alf pint IPA’s”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll go and see Mrs Holmes and tell her about the garden and do us all tea with her things”.</p><p> </p><p>“Make sure you tell ‘er I’ll pay ‘er back later”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya went next door and spoke to Gertie, then went downstairs and made the tea. By the time she’d finished Gertie had actually followed her downstairs.</p><p> </p><p>“You go and get him in here while I play mother”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya went outside “Mrs Holmes is inviting you in for your tea”.</p><p> </p><p>He stopped working, wiped the sweat off his brow and followed her back into the house.</p><p> </p><p>Arya felt she should do introductions “Mrs Holmes this is Mr Clegane your new next door neighbour; Mr Clegane Mrs Holmes”.</p><p>                        </p><p>“Gertie m’ duck, you and me won’t stand on ceremony will we”.</p><p> </p><p>“Sandor”, they shook hands</p><p> </p><p>“That’s an unusual name”.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a shortened form of Alexander, it’s more common in Greece”.</p><p> </p><p>“But you come from around here”.</p><p> </p><p>“A bit further north an west but near enough, me fayther were a great reader, from t’ public library, I think that’s where ‘e found it. ‘E said a name can meck a difference”.</p><p> </p><p>“And ‘e’s right isn’t ‘e Lady Arya”.</p><p> </p><p>“He is Gertie and I’ve asked you nicely not to call me Lady, Arya is fine”.</p><p> </p><p>“Between ourselves maybe but now we’re in company I mustn’t be impolite”.</p><p> </p><p>“But it’s not impolite, or if it is then I must call you Mrs Holmes out of respect for your age”.</p><p> </p><p>“Is she as argumentative with you Sandor, I don’t know how her mother copes with her”.</p><p> </p><p>Quietly Arya thought ‘she doesn’t she sends me down to you’, but kept her mouth shut.</p><p> </p><p>“Well we’re hardly acquainted but I think it’s fair to say I’ve felt her make her point forcibly”.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh the way you two were talking in the garden I thought you knew each other well”.</p><p> </p><p>“You could hear us”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh yes those new privies have had an odd effect, they make our two houses almost like one, but cut us off from the others on either side. It must be the same all the way down. Only if you’re close to the house of course further down the garden I couldn’t hear anything so if you want to speak privately you just need to walk a bit further down”.</p><p> </p><p>While Sandor and Arya both digested the fact that Gertie might have overheard their conversation the old lady chattered on, thanking them both for coming, refusing Sandor’s offer of replacing the tea. Before they realised it, it was starting to go dark.</p><p> </p><p>“Well that’s digging for today done, thank you again Gertie I’ll away and make me tea”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes and you’d better get back to The Hall M’Lady, before it goes dark, or your father will worry”.</p><p> </p><p>“What about the washing up”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh I’ll manage that”.</p><p> </p><p>So they said their good byes and returned to their respective homes.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As soon as she could after dinner Arya got Sansa in private.</p><p> </p><p>“When Sandor Clegane goosed you, did you encourage him”</p><p> </p><p>Sansa went a bit quiet, “I’m not sure what you mean”.</p><p> </p><p>“If he slid his hand across your bum did you push yourself back onto his hand to make the most of it”</p><p> </p><p>“I might have done, why” Sansa was looking at the floor, her sister knew exactly what that meant.</p><p> </p><p>“I put granny’s hat pin in his arse maybe somewhere more sensitive. I did it on the assumption you weren’t enjoying what he was doing. I remember now you told me about groping the footman, he saw you do that you know, so he thought you wouldn’t mind and it sounds like you didn’t”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well it happened and it hardly really matters does it, it was the panto”, she looked as she said this but her eyes still read ‘guilty’.</p><p> </p><p>“You didn’t say anything to mummy or daddy about it”.</p><p> </p><p>“Good lord no”.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you think either of them can have noticed, daddy in particular”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, he was half asleep I could see him nodding, but why this sudden inquisition”.</p><p> </p><p>“I spoke to Sandor today, he thinks I got him fired as the Duke’s valet. He’s working on the Home Farm and living in Walton, is none too happy about it and with good reason. I’m trying to work out if he’s right”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll bet he’s not happy, but I doubt anything was said, more likely the Duke himself saw him”.</p><p> </p><p>“No he was pointedly not watching, staring up in the air to make his boredom obvious”.</p><p> </p><p>“Just a minute; if Clegane”.</p><p> </p><p>“Sandor”.</p><p> </p><p>“Whoever, if he’s working at Home Farm then he could be the phantom, well you know ……him”.</p><p> </p><p>“You mean well endowed man who might or might not have tried to wee all over me”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes”.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh he is, he told me so this afternoon, largely so he could accuse me of trying to stab him again, but he did apologies for leaving me, he didn’t realise how badly I’d banged my head”.</p><p> </p><p>“So it was his, you know what you saw”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, he’s a big man in many ways”.</p><p> </p><p>“Arya, you can’t say that”</p><p> </p><p>“Well he is, as you said about the footman, it happened, I’ve seen my second man, you may have had a grope at a footman, but I’ve had a good look”.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean a good look, did you actually stare at him”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya though about that for a minute, “I suppose I did a bit, I mean I’m sixteen, I could legally be married if father agreed and so far my knowledge of the male anatomy for my wedding night is one  two second look at Sandor and that time in the hay loft watching, what I now suspect was a rather young and not fully mature stable lad engaged in what I believe they call ‘tossing off’”.</p><p> </p><p>“What makes you think he was immature”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I’m trying to be polite, as an alternative he just had a rather thin John Thomas”.</p><p> </p><p>“Or the man Clegane has a particularly big one”.</p><p> </p><p>“When you were fondling the footman what did it feel like”.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t really remember, I was quite squiffy at the time, he didn’t complain so I must have done something he liked”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, that’s not what I meant, not what did it feel like in your hand, what did it feel like inside you”.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean”.</p><p> </p><p>“Monthlies gives you cramps down in the bottom of your belly, right now or if I lay in bed and daydream about the boy in the stables, or Sandor’s John Thomas I get this sort of swirly feeling in the same place. It’s nice but a bit frustrating and I can’t help thinking or hoping it’s the start of something bigger”.</p><p> </p><p>“You feel like that now, here in my bedroom”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, but relax I don’t feel it about you, it’s because I’ve got the memories of my whole sex life to date in my mind. You’re going to tell me you don’t aren’t you”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well certainly not now, and not the stable boy either, I feel a bit guilty we watched him and a bit, well icky, about all the mess he made. I mean if a man does that inside you does it stay in or when you stand up does it all run back out down your legs”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya took a moment to think about that, “Well if you’re laying down it probably stays in so best to lay back and think of England for a while. I mean the bit that’s going to make you pregnant has to stay in, but I suppose some of it probably does dribble back out”.</p><p> </p><p>“So you’d have to wipe it up”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I suppose if he were being a gentleman he might do it for you, it is his dribble after all. I mean it can’t be any worse than mopping up a monthly’s leak”.</p><p> </p><p>“And you know how I feel about that”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes and I think you make a fuss over nothing, we have modern disposable towels, before the war they just had flannel rags and had to wash them out and re-use them, although I suppose you’d just leave yours for a maid to clean up”.</p><p> </p><p>“I haven’t noticed you in the scullery on Mondays”.</p><p> </p><p>“As father says ‘you don’t have a dog and bark’ and I can’t help having been born into the aristocracy. If I went down and tried to help out I’d get chucked out. I once tried to get cook to show me how to do something simple and she treated me like I was trying to take her job away. I can boil a kettle and make tea, largely because Gertie Holmes has shown me how, and I think I could boil an egg, but I’d almost certainly overdo it and end with it solid. But back to the subject of that feeling; sit and imagine something romantic, your knight in shining armour has ridden over the hill, daddy has given you away to him and it’s your first time, in a bed of flowers and you’re lying there, probably with your eyes closed and he’s doing it and it’s bliss, doesn’t that make you feel different”.</p><p> </p><p>“All that’s making me feel is that you need to be very careful Arya, you seem to think it’s fun, it’s not it’s to make babies”.</p><p> </p><p>“But can’t it be fun too. Look everyone does it or there wouldn’t be any of us left, mummy must have done it at least five times for there to be five of us and I suspect she’s done it a lot more than that or people wouldn’t be selling johnnies in barbers shops by asking for ‘something for the weekend’, that sort of implies once a week at least”.</p><p> </p><p>“Can we talk about something else Arya. I sometimes worry about you, all this conversation is making me feel is embarrassed that it’s happening”.</p><p> </p><p>Rather unwillingly Arya changed the subject, she thought it was funny but only in a sad way; while Sansa worried about her she worried about Sansa, that when the time came she’d be so embarrassed she might not work out how to enjoy it.</p><p> </p><p>------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Next morning Arya found her father in the library.</p><p> </p><p>“Daddy can I ask you a favour”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ask away then I’ll see”.</p><p> </p><p>“You know the Duke of Nottingham’s man Clegane”</p><p> </p><p>“Well I know of him, I wouldn’t say we were acquainted let alone friends”.</p><p> </p><p>“I just meant you know who I’m talking about, but that sounds like you actually know things about him”.</p><p> </p><p>“He was in the Robin Hoods in 1917 when your brother died”.</p><p> </p><p>“Was he serving under Robb”.</p><p> </p><p>“No alongside him, Clegane was an officer, only an emergency war commission of course, but he and Robb served together briefly”.</p><p> </p><p>“Does he know”</p><p> </p><p>“He said not, but I’m not convinced he wasn’t refusing to tell me”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya knew her elder brother had died of wounds sustained near Cambrai on the Western Front in 1917. She also knew her father was angry because Robb, who was under training as a cavalry officer to join his regiment the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry, known to all those who served in it, including several generations of the family as the ‘Sherwood Rangers’, in Palestine. After the successful tank attack the Germans had counter-attacked using new infiltration tactics and troops had had to be rushed from England to make up numbers and plug the line. Robb had found himself posted to a unit he didn’t know and thrown into action, where he had quite quickly been severally wounded and subsequently died.</p><p> </p><p>“Why would he tell you”.</p><p> </p><p>“Because there are a lot of ugly ways to die in war Arya and the Western front used all of the worst. We were lucky in Palestine, in particular there was no gas. The other alternative is Robb’s death reflects badly on the rest of us and he wanted to save me from the embarrassment”.</p><p> </p><p>“So he might have been doing you a favour”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m a grown man and I served through the war I’m old enough to stomach bad news and I wanted to know not be left in the dark. Thankfully you will never have to serve Arya, but one of the worst things is the lack of information, not knowing makes you afraid. As an officer I always tried to make sure my men knew everything I did, even when that meant bad news”.</p><p> </p><p>The room went a bit quite, Arya didn’t want to interrupt or argue with her father over this subject. It was Ned who spoke next.</p><p> </p><p>“So enough of that what are you nosing about Clegane for”.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you know he lost his job with the Duke and was now working on Home Farm”.</p><p> </p><p>“No”.</p><p> </p><p>“I want you to find out how he lost his job if you can. Talk to the Duke”.</p><p> </p><p>“That won’t work, one does not walk into another peers home and open a conversation with ‘I say Nottingham why’d you sack your man Clegane’, the answer, and particularly from him, would be short and indicative of my junior rank”.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re far cleverer than that daddy, you can find out I’m sure”.</p><p> </p><p>The duke gave his daughter a look that made the next question obvious before he’d opened his mouth “Why am I making this enquiry and in particular for your benefit”.</p><p> </p><p>“Because he thinks I was responsible”.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve clearly met the man, may I enquire where and how”.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s living in the next cottage to Mrs Holmes who I visit for tea and gossip and a bit of mother’s charity, charity she wouldn’t need if you paid widows a better pension”.</p><p> </p><p>“Sadly Arya the reason Mrs Holmes needs a bit of charity is that her husband drank every penny I gave him in wages, other widows in the village manage because their husbands put money aside, which they can afford to do at the rate’s I pay them, but you are changing the subject, that he is next door to Mrs Holmes is an inadequate explanation”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well we spoke and he might have been a little upset. He feels that something that happened at Christmas may have been the cause of his dismissal”.</p><p> </p><p>“The hat pin incident”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes”.</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing to do with us, I’m sure of that, so unless Nottingham saw what was going on I suspect Clegan’s wrong”.</p><p> </p><p>“Sansa says the Duke was pointedly not watching, snubbing us for being boring”.</p><p> </p><p>“I can believe that, I’d just eaten too much and was falling asleep”.</p><p> </p><p>“We noticed, but please daddy I’m going to see him on and off unless I spend all my time working out when he won’t be in before I call on Gertie and I don’t want him thinking I was responsible. I don’t suppose he would but I don’t want to be the subject of a petty prank”.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think Clegane’s the sort for pranks, a very serious man with a Methodist background”.</p><p> </p><p>“So you do know something about him”.</p><p> </p><p>“More about his father, a lay preacher around our lands near Bolsover and a strict Sabbatarian, he would walk miles to preach on a Sunday instead of taking a bus. Some people interpreted some of his sermons as a bit socialist so I went and listened to him one morning. As I said I don’t know his son but unless the acorn has fallen miles from the tree he will not be a man for jolly japes and tricks”.</p><p> </p><p>“But he would be a man to hold a grudge”.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh yes, his father was notorious, I’m not going into details but the father held one against this wife for ten years”.</p><p> </p><p>“He beat her”.</p><p> </p><p>“No just the opposite refused to sleep with her for a decade”. Ned shook his head, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, it’s none of your business and the boy may not be a copy of his father and anyway if he is it hardly matters. If he is rude to you then you tell me and Taylor will go and remind him of who pays his wages”.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s the point father I don’t want to deal with him that way, threats and ‘I’m the Earl’s daughter call me my lady and bend the knee’. I won’t say I want to be his friend, but I want us to be civil because we have no cause not to be. Times are changing, the Lords and serfs thing can’t last”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well if your socialist friends get into power and take away all our money it won’t, but I can’t see it doing them any good, penny to a pound they’ll waste most of it and the end result will just be that we’re all poor”.</p><p> </p><p>“But back to my point daddy, please would you ‘make enquiries’ and try and find out why he was sacked”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll do what I can, but I’m not making promises”. Ned was somewhat surprised and a little unsettled by the enthusiastic hug he got from his daughter for this offer.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Arya timed her visits to Gertie Holmes carefully for a week or so then deliberately went round on a Saturday afternoon and went round the back. Unsurprisingly Sandor was still digging although he had completed his own garden and was well down Gertie’s.</p><p> </p><p>“Good afternoon Mr Clegane, how are you, may I have a word”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well yer ‘aving one, so as usual I’m not getting a say in things am ah”.</p><p> </p><p>“I have some information for you. It may not help or change anything but I think you should know. My father told me a good officer always passes on what he knows to his men”.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh so you’re my officer now are yer, not satisfied with bein’ Lady Arya Stark, yer’ve a mind to be Captain Stark as well. Well that’s summat as’ll never ‘appen”.</p><p> </p><p>“No I’m sorry, sometimes I say things and people don’t take them the way I mean them. I want you to know something because I hope it will make things better between us”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well spit it aht then”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve spoken to my father and he’s asked a few people, discreetly, about you losing your previous post and it may not have had anything to do with anything personal”.</p><p> </p><p>“’Ow d’ye figure that aht”.</p><p> </p><p>“The day after you were fired three maids, two kitchen staff and a footmen got their marching orders”.</p><p> </p><p>“Bloody ‘ell, sorry M’lady”.</p><p> </p><p>“Forget it, and please don’t call me M’lady, I don’t like it, I didn’t choose to be born an Earl’s daughter and I rather wish I hadn’t been. I’d prefer it if you simply call me Arya and unless you think I’m being rude because of your superior age I’d like to call you Sandor, but if you insist then I’m calling you Mr Clegane, the respectful option not just Clegane like my parents would”.</p><p> </p><p>“You can call me what you like and I’ll call you M’lady or Lady Arya because if I’m heard doing otherwise I’m in trouble”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya noted the dropping of the dialect and thought she’d won a little victory. She also had to acknowledge the accuracy of his observation. “So Sandor it would appear that your late master may have at least a degree of a financial problem and has had to reduce the staff in the house. He’s still got twice as many as we have and father has admitted that since the war it’s only the mines that keep us in financial comfort and we’ve three mines to the Duke of Nottingham’s two”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay and yours all make good money, one of ‘is is s’ full a damp they rarely work more ‘an an hour or two afore they ‘ave to come out or suffocate, I doubt it does more ‘an brek even”.</p><p> </p><p>“Then why does he keep it open”.</p><p> </p><p>“Because ‘e’s no other work for ‘em if ‘e shut it and there’s precious little other work round ‘ere. ‘E dunna want unemployed men on ‘is land wi’ nowhere else t’ go. I wer lucky to get this ‘ere job, like I said I know t’ agent from t’ war”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes father said you were an officer in the same regiment as Robb”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay, and not just the same regiment the same battalion, which shows ‘ow desperate for officers they were promoting a working man like me, but it were a wartime only commission, I were out on me ear as soon as peace were signed in 1919”.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you know how he died”. Arya regretted asking the question as soon as she’d uttered it. Sandor’s face fell like he’d been hit below the belt.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay an’ ah’m not sayin’ nowt abaht it”.</p><p> </p><p>“He didn’t disgrace himself did he”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, now shut up else I’m goin’ inside”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya was sure she could see tears forming in his eyes, “I’m sorry but he was my brother, You don’t realise how much you love your brother until he isn’t there” and she realised she was crying too and then she felt his arms round her holding her into his body. He was so tall her face was buried in the middle of his chest. There was a part of her that was embarrassed and wanted to pull back, she wasn’t a child to be crying, then she remembered the tears in his eyes, may be it was best to stay like this until they’d both calmed down a bit, so she put her arms as far round his waist as they would reach and held still while she got herself under control. She could feel his head on top of hers and after a while he lifted it. She took this as a sign and let her arms drop and he took half a step away but kept his hands on her shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>“If you two want to do that best you come in the kitchen. I’ve mashed so it will be a decent excuse”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya jolted back and felt Sandor do the same, Gertie was stood there looking at the pair of them. Sandor got their excuse out first.</p><p> </p><p>“We were remembering ‘er late brother I were there when ‘e were wounded”.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s as may be, but seen like that folks’ll jump to another conclusion. You’re out of sight where you are to most folk but if someone walked down the path it would be all o’er the village in a day and round t’ servants at t’ ‘All t’ day after. Yer guess is as good as mine M’lady how quickly after that it would get to your parents”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya realised Gertie was right, the two privies created a little area shared by the two houses but otherwise quite private, as to her question, that was a matter she had no clue about. As suggested she and Sandor moved into Gerties kitchen where a pot of tea was nestling under a cosy. They sat down on the far opposite ends of the table which left them looking straight at each other but well separated. Gertie sat down between them and pored, leaving them to add milk and sugar as they saw fit. She chattered about the weather, and how good Sandor was at digging her garden, double dug for the first time in decades while Arya and Sandor just sat there not looking at each other. After a while she slowed to a halt.</p><p> </p><p>“Cat got your tongues then, particularly you M’lady, It’s not like you not to have something t’ say”.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry, I think that’s the first time I’ve really thought about Robb being gone since we heard and I was only ten then so it wasn’t the same”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay well the whole thing was a terrible experience and we should all pray to God it never ‘appens agin, but it’s good to see it stopped you two fighting”.</p><p> </p><p>“We weren’t fighting”</p><p> </p><p>“Your tone of voice earlier and t’ other week said y’were and as much as we can be friends with rank, sex and age differences I count you both as my fiends so I dunna want you at war wi’ each other so I ‘ope you’ve sorted y’usens out”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya felt like she was being lectured by her grandmother and even Sandor looked a bit sheepish.</p><p> </p><p>“Most of it was a series of misunderstandings and I think we’ve sorted things out. We’ve both jumped to conclusions and done things we shouldn’t have as a result and yes I’m prepared to say I am sorry for a number of things Lady Arya and I hope we can avoid any further unpleasantness”.</p><p> </p><p>“And likewise I apologise, particularly for the incident with the hat pin. I know there’s the rank issue but really I think we are friends, all three of us. Maybe I need friends more than you two, there are very few young people of my age and class in the area and the nearest young man I hate and detest so apart from my sister I have little company I can enjoy”.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor saw the look on Gertie’s face when a hat pin was mentioned and knew he’d be quizzed on that later. Oh well they’d buried the hatchet and he didn’t suppose after that they'd actually see much of each other. Which he realised was a shame because she really was a rather ballsy young lady. Sandor had no time for simpering women, not that you found many at his social level, but she was different she was petite and attractive and; and he stopped himself, she was the daughter of an earl, he needed to get back to his digging. He drained his cup.</p><p> </p><p>“Ta fer’t tea Gertie, but that garden won’t dig I’sen” and he was up and out of the room before either of the women could say anything.</p><p> </p><p>In Sandor’s absence conversation returned to the more normal pattern of Gertie talking and Arya adding a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ at appropriate points. After about an hour Gertie ran out of things to say and Arya diplomatically noticed it was time she was going.</p><p> </p><p>“But before I do may I borrow the use of the privy, we’ve been through two pots of tea”.</p><p> </p><p>“Of course, you don’t have to ask, it’s nice and clean and you’re getting a bit old to be bobbin’ down behind a wall and watering the grass. The papers not what you’ll be used to I’m afraid”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sure I’ll manage” and of course she did, actually she preferred the old newspaper squares to the Izal Medicated they had at The Hall, it was actually softer although the printers ink did get on your bum and then on your knickers, but as Sansa had observed she didn’t have to do her own laundry. She called goodbye to Sandor as she left but his head was down and his back to her as he worked away so she wasn’t unduly bothered that he didn’t turn and reply.</p><p> </p><p>The walk home gave her time to think; today she felt had gone very well. They appeared to have buried any hatchets and not in each other’s heads, they appeared to have an ally in Gertie, who whatever she thought was going on between them was obviously not going to tattle about it. The question was, what was she an ally in. Arya remembered being held to Sandor’s chest, amongst the tears she’d noticed a smell, hardly surprising he’d been digging, but it had been a nice smell, earthy slightly of the blue stalks she liked to pick in the autumn and his arms were strong and muscular, she’d felt very safe in them and thinking about all this was giving her that swirly tummy feeling again. She didn’t want to call it love, that seemed too girly and she hadn’t really enough understanding to realise it was lust, but she knew it was both nice but a preliminary not an end.</p><p> </p><p>Failing to concentrate on where she was walking she tripped over a loose cobble and nearly fell. Straightening herself up she had a flood of reality, he was twice her age, he was a farm labourer, if he wanted a wife he could find a number of local women widowed by the war or yet unmarried for lack of a suitor for the same reason who would happily have him and avoid all the complications of trying to associate with her and what would he see in her anyway; a horse faced, titless little girl with aristocratic expectations he couldn’t fulfil. All the gains of the day evaporated, even the swirly feeling went away and she arrived back at The Hall stomping her feet up the stairs, carelessly leaving muddy prints for a maid to have to clean away before she got to her room and changed the shoes she could and should have taken off in the boot room. As a result when she went down to dinner and was grumbled at by her mother for the footprints the day degenerated even further.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor was barely any more cheerful. As he lay in bed hoping that all the work would bring about a rapid onset of sleep all he could think about was that single little pale globe of such beautifully curved flesh that was Arya Stark’s left buttock and then the very comforting feeling of her in his arms, her hair gently scented with lavender and her arms trying to encircle him. The problem with these thoughts was that their effect on John Thomas was as predictable as it was becoming regular. Sandor reached for the old sock, the experience would be pleasant but the mental recrimination afterwards, she was the daughter of the earl and half his age, barely more than a child with no knowledge, thankfully, of the less polite habits of men would sour the experience.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’d reached the equinox, spring was all over the countryside they both lived in, trees and flowers bloomed, crops were growing, lambs gambolling it was hardly surprising something was swirling more energetically in the loins of young people than they had in the depths of the winter.</p><p> </p><p>Arya had been ‘playing it cool’ with Sandor, calling on Gertie regularly on Saturday afternoons and Sundays when she knew Sandor was in, always being polite taking the opportunity to say hello and he had been equally polite back. They both subconsciously knew they were dancing around each other, fingers touching like a square dance, somehow they needed a shove to get them into a schottische or reel. Some shoves can come in most unexpected ways.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor had emptied his bladder and was rebuttoning himself when there was a rip and he found half his flies in his hand instead of being attached to his trousers. It was almost inevitable these were his gardening trousers, the oldest and scruffiest pair he owned, not that as a farm labourer he needed anything smart except for ‘Sunday best’, but these were clearly the worst and had now given up on him. Ah well he would clutch his flies closed and step promptly into the house and change them. Whether they were repairable would be something to bother about later.</p><p> </p><p>Arya had just swung round the corner when he stepped out of his privy holding himself in a rather peculiar way. Before she had time to think her mouth had started to work.</p><p> </p><p>“If you’re that desperate for a wee you’re going in the wrong direction”.</p><p> </p><p>“At least ah’m not ‘anging ma bum out in t’ breeze an’ waterin’ t’ snowdrops”.</p><p> </p><p>She’d never thought of that, had he actually seen the stream “You didn’t see did you, just my bum not..”</p><p> </p><p>“Nay don’t fret Y’usen lass ah saw th’ cheek of yer bum an’ a very nice pale round cheek it were too, but  nowt else. Now if ah can git in ma own ‘ouse”.</p><p> </p><p>She backed up in front of him into his house, later she wondered why she hadn’t just stepped sideways. He followed her, once they were indoors she was still stood between him and the stairs.</p><p> </p><p>“Unless tha plan is ter force me t’ show yer me John Thomas a second time yer need to step outta the way”.</p><p> </p><p>She obliged but somehow he knew a quip was coming “No once seen not forgotten and if I might quote you, it was very nice and pale, but it was a trifle soft and floppy”.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor could feel that it was fast becoming far from soft and floppy in his trousers, but his hand was fortunately covering that up, he hoped.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay well at yer age it’s best yer avoid the more upstanding ones” and he climbed the stairs to his bedroom.</p><p> </p><p>Arya didn’t really think about what happened next, they were in conversation so she just followed him like she’d follow her sister if they were talking and walking round the house.</p><p> </p><p>“Well so far they’ve done a very good job of avoiding me, mother warned Sansa and I a few years ago about men who expose themselves to you, flashers, she called them and how we were to behave if it happened and I’m still waiting”.</p><p> </p><p>Gods she’d followed him upstairs and was talking about being flashed, was she inviting him to turn round and do so.</p><p> </p><p>“Yer need t’be careful saying things like that. Yer’ve said before yer say things and people misinterpret ‘em, suppose I were to turn round now and show yer John Thomas in all his glory”.</p><p> </p><p>There was the swirly feeling again, was he offering “I think if you did I wouldn’t panic, I trust you, don’t ask me to explain why but I don’t think you’ll force yourself on me so if you offered me a look at something I’ve never really seen before I think I might not close my eyes and I certainly wouldn’t run away and tell my mother”.</p><p> </p><p>“Seriously yer’ve never seen a man ready t’ engage wi’ a woman”.</p><p> </p><p>“Not a proper man, a young boy once but I don’t think he was fully grown down there”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay well if yer’ve seen one yeru’ve seen ‘em all, pretty much”.</p><p> </p><p>“But it was a long way away and he had his hand round it and kept moving it about I couldn’t really look at in detail”.</p><p> </p><p>“Are yer listening to y’usen”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes and I know it’s ‘not proper’ but I’m not proper, well not entirely, one good look, nothing else, please”.</p><p> </p><p>Was it the please that did it, were good manners so ingrained he didn’t know then or years later but slowly he turned round and removed his hand, unrestrained his manhood poked out of his ripped flies. He looked at her face, and she wasn’t looking at him, well not in that eye anyway, that knowledge lead to a surge of feeling that really lifted him up.</p><p> </p><p>She watched him turn towards her, well she’d asked him so she couldn’t back out now. Well no she could, she was nearer the stairs and could bolt anytime she wanted, but she wasn’t going to. There it was large, sausage shaped, stiff with some skin peeled well back from a bell shaped end and at the head a small slit. It was impressively large and for whatever reason it got that bit larger and twitched upward to a steeper angle, the little slit trying to look her in the eye.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor was beginning to feel a worrying mixture of urge and fright. Fine she wanted a look, but nothing else so he had better call a halt. He turned his back.</p><p> </p><p>“Peep shows ova lass, afore yer get more‘n yer bargained fer. Downstairs wi’ ya and mash some tea, enough for three. I’ll change inta some trousers ah’m fit t’be seen in an’ we’ll take th’ pot round to Gerties and ‘ave a little natter”.</p><p> </p><p>She suspected she knew what he meant by more than she bargained for and it wouldn’t have frightened her, but if he didn’t want to she wasn’t going to push him, his instruction to go and make the tea had come in a hardening voice, the sort that lead to shouting if she didn’t obey, so she backed up and trotted downstairs to move the kettle onto the hot part of the range so it would boil while she found the tea things in the cupboard.</p><p> </p><p>In his bedroom Sandor pulled off his trousers and found a second pair to put on. Despite Arya’s disappearance and this distraction he was still hard, almost painfully so. He had no choice, grab the sock turn away from the door and apply friction and it required the minimum of effort to empty himself once more with the images of Arya Stark in his mind. The door was shut and he held himself in to make as little noise as possible. He threw the sock on the floor pushed himself into his trousers and closed the buttons before descending the stairs.</p><p> </p><p>When he got down he saw that Arya had only laid two cups out.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah thought ah said we’d take one round to Gertie”.</p><p> </p><p>“Sandor I think we need to talk and I don’t think what we need to talk about you will want to discuss in front of Gertie”.</p><p> </p><p>“And what if Ah say we dunna, t’ less said t’ better”.</p><p> </p><p>“Gods Victorian Methodism, this is the Nineteen Twenties Sandor, we’ve had The Great War and the ‘flu epidemic, millions have died, we’ve both lost people we care about. You’ve probably seen things you don’t want to talk to me about, to anyone about, in the war and I can understand that, but what we did was sexual so we must pretend it didn’t happen. What then, pretend it isn’t going to happen again, because it is, what just happened, no I’m going to spell it out; you turning round and showing me your stiff John Thomas and me having a good look at it and you turning away because you were worried the creamy ropey stuff was about to fly out of it”, she wasn’t sure about the last bit but his faced had been quite flushed “that’s sexual and it’s sexual between us because we both wanted it to be, so we need to talk about it before one of us does something the other doesn’t want to happen and spoils it”.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor sat there in shock, virtually no one ranted at him, ever. Even in the war senior officers tended to instruct him in a non-confrontational manner. People shouted at him in battle so he could hear them, that was different. He badly needed to get Arya under control.</p><p> </p><p>“Please, don’t shout, I’m not sure how thick the walls are and I don’t think, as you said a moment ago, either of us want this discussion to include Gertie”.</p><p> </p><p>Her reaction was funny, almost childish, she sat down opposite him and started to whisper, but in the same impassioned manner.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know how you feel at this minute, but I’m feeling very emotional, very tense and squirmy in my belly, down by my, oh what in hell do you call it”, she stopped, how could she talk to a man about sex when she didn’t even have words for her own body.</p><p> </p><p>“Lady Jane”.</p><p> </p><p>“Pardon”.</p><p> </p><p>“What yer were starin’ at so avidly is John Thomas ain’t ‘e”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, I know that phrase”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well where John Thomas goes for ‘is fun, that’s yer Lady Jane”.</p><p> </p><p>“And if I’m not a lady, in the daughter of an Earl sense, is it just Jane”.</p><p> </p><p>“Nay” he laughed, it was a deep rumble she rather liked, “Ah’ve never thought a’that afore, but no we promote them parts t’title o’ Lady for even t’ commonest whore”, well he was probably exaggerating a bit, he knew the word cunt might be use for a common whore but he didn’t feel Arya needed to know that.</p><p> </p><p>“So you see, you are now responsible for three quarters of my sexual knowledge. It’s pathetic I could be in my marriage bed now trying to explain to my husband that I had no idea it was that big”.</p><p> </p><p>“Tha knows abaht t’stuff that comes aht, yer’ve seen summat else”.</p><p> </p><p>“Once, a stable lad, looking back probably no more that fourteen or fifteen so yes I watched what he did to himself and what happened, but that was it and as I said he was about half your thickness”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay well most men aren’t my size, in a barracks yer can’t ‘elp seein’ other blokes an’ there’s a good chance that on yer wedding night yer’ll ‘ave summat smaller t’ look at. Another reason it’s best yer dunnat get use to t’ sight o’ mine”.</p><p> </p><p>“And what if I want to be looking at yours on my wedding night”.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t be daft lass, you and I are never going to marry”.</p><p> </p><p>“Because you don’t want me, a little titless wonder with a horseface, you want a real woman with” and here she cupped her hands under where her breasts would have been but for a flapper dress “big titties”.</p><p> </p><p>“Nay, because ye’re the daughter of an Earl and he’d never let me and even if he did, once you’d ‘ad a month for the flush of fun from t’ sex to wear off and yer were facing fifty years livin’ in an ‘ouse two rooms bigger than thisn, wi’ a bunch of kids an’t cookin’, cleanin’ an’t laundry you wouldna want me and that’s afore yer get to me temper and’t burns on me face an’ down t’rest of me body. I dunna know where yer got yer ideas abaht yer body from but ye’re wrong, yer a beautiful young lady, small I agree but still beautiful. Look I probably shouldna be sayin’ this, but last night and plenty of other times I’ve made the, what did yer call it ‘creamy ropey stuff’, we call it cum, come out just thinkin’ about one cheek of your bum and your eyes on Master John on Plough Monday”, he thought it best not to mention the latest occurrence, this whole conversation was getting way out of his or he suspected her control. “At present I dunna want t’even think abaht t’rest of yer body for fear of embarrassing both of us”.</p><p> </p><p>That stopped her in her tracks; he was doing it regularly and thinking of her. Oh she wished the feeling in her gut would go away and let her concentrate, she was squeezing her thighs together and jiffling her bum like she needed a wee and it wasn’t getting any better. Something inside her snapped.</p><p> </p><p>“Well thank you for your appreciation of my body and the relief it gives you. I wish I could say the same but I can’t. I think you’re right this can never work, not because of who my father is but because of who we both are” and she stood and bolted for the door. When she got there some deeply engrained training kicked in, “Thank you for the tea and I’m sorry if I’ve upset you in any way” and she was gone.</p><p> </p><p>For a second he thought about going after her, but firstly he was pretty sure she didn’t want him to and secondly any sort of follow on conversation in the street was impossible.</p><p> </p><p>Arya was half way home before she realised she hadn’t been in to see Gertie, well it was too late she continued to pound back to the The Hall, although she did go in via the boot room, but after that she went upstairs to her room, stopping a surprised maid in the corridor “Tell my mother I’ve the cramps and won’t be down for dinner”, shit manners “Please”. The maid went on her way and Arya shut herself in her room and burst into tears of frustration.</p><p> </p><p>When her sister came to check she was alright she threw her out. “Just go away please, don’t ask, don’t tell, just leave me alone”.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eventually Arya got to sleep, to strange dreams in which John Thomas’s, flaccid and erect were everywhere attached to unrecognisable people and she was stark naked but no one seemed to notice and the swirly feeling in her stomach was back and she was chasing the biggest John Thomas owner but her legs wouldn’t work so she was virtually treading water but on land and the swirling feeling was building with every pump of her legs.</p><p> </p><p>Then she woke up, it was dark but she knew she was in her room and really awake, the dream hadn’t just moved on suddenly. She realised she was panting and her pulse was racing, it was as if she had been running for real. Then her legs gave a shudder, all the muscles were quivering and she realised that she had her left hand stuffed in her, what had he called it, yes her Lady Jane, her fist was tight up against her hip bone and her legs squeezed round it.</p><p> </p><p>But the best bit was all the tension had gone, the quivering stopped and she felt her whole body just relax, oh that was bliss, she rolled off the side she had been sleeping on  and uncurled herself to lay completely flat on her back, legs splayed, fist unclenched. She was still breathing in little pants but they were slowing down and she could feel her pulse slowing in the same way.</p><p> </p><p>After another minute she felt she’d calmed down, then she realised her hand was wet. Oh no she’d wee’d the bed, surely not at her age, but the sheet under her felt dry. Carefully she lifted the bedclothes and brought her hand to her face and sniffed, no smell of wee, or the hard iron of blood, more very very slightly yeasty, but really no smell at all. She sat up, much as she really felt like just going back to sleep she needed to investigate, she put her other hand that was still dry down into her Lady Jane and promptly got it wet too. Whatever had happened had produced this fluid. What she really wanted was a good look, but that would mean lighting the lamp, which would be difficult with wet hands so she settled for taking a handkerchief off her bedside cabinet top and thoroughly drying her fingers and then doing the same between her legs. In the morning when she woke up if it had any colour she could see then. There was certainly plenty if it, by the time she finished the handkerchief was thoroughly wet. Well that would do ‘til tomorrow and she curled back up and fell asleep again.</p><p> </p><p>------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Morning saw Arya sleep in, she was finally woken by her sister opening the door.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you OK”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m good, sorry about last night, I got all tense with things in the afternoon and felt screwed up last night but while I was asleep it all sort of resolved itself and this morning I feel like a new person, full of the joys of spring”.</p><p> </p><p>“I wish my cramps would resolve themselves like that”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah I might have told a little whopper there, no monthlies, that was just an excuse to get out of dinner and stay in my room”.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh well you’d better hope you don’t get some in a week, because mother won’t believe you”.</p><p> </p><p>“Have you ever tried to talk to mother about sex, apart from monthlies”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes and was told quite firmly that she’d tell me when I needed to now, i.e. on the eve of my wedding. Mummy’s firmly in the ‘if they don’t know they can’t do anything’ camp”.</p><p> </p><p>“Which is rubbish, it’s tempting to go and tell her so as well”.</p><p> </p><p>“I wouldn’t if you want to leave the house unchaperoned ever again. We had this discussion before Christmas when you came home with that packet of Johnnies, we are let out on sufferance, one step over the mark and that all ends. Now what do you mean it all resolved itself while you were asleep”.</p><p> </p><p>So Arya told her and part way through remembered the handkerchief and they had a look at it. It had dried out and had no coloured marks but it was slightly stiff with a distinct odour.</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t suppose that’s girl stuff do you, you know like the boy’s creamy stuff”.</p><p> </p><p>“You mean you think I might have squirted it out last night. It was just between my legs there wasn’t any on the bedding, well I don’t think so” and to Sansa’s amazement Arya went round the bed sniffing like a dog looking  for a scent and running her fingers over the bedsheet as well.</p><p> </p><p>“Not that I can see, feel or smell, but if that was how it feels for boys then I think I might want another and I can understand why they’re so keen on them”.</p><p> </p><p>”What got you so wound up in the afternoon”.</p><p> </p><p>There was a long silence.</p><p> </p><p>“Did something horrible happen”</p><p> </p><p>“No nothing horrible, but I don’t want to go into details, not what where or with who because I don’t want you to have to keep a secret for me and at the moment it has to be a secret”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya should have realised that was not the answer her sister wanted.</p><p> </p><p>“So you don’t trust me”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I don’t want you to know for all sorts of reasons, it’s not fair on you telling you and saying ‘but now keep quiet’ and it’s not fair on someone else”.</p><p> </p><p>“So there’s a someone else, who”</p><p> </p><p>“Just forget it, I shouldn’t have said anything even about the dream. It’s all too complicated I need to think it through and work it out in my head because if my final conclusion is it happened but never again it’s best you never know, if it carries on at some point I’ll tell you because otherwise you’ll start to follow me around to try and find out”.</p><p> </p><p>“I wouldn’t”.</p><p> </p><p>“You would and badly, so I’d notice and you’d look silly, but it would make me angry with you and it’s all complicated enough without adding you into the mixture”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya could see her sister was deeply frustrated. All their lives Sansa had done everything first, ‘I’ll always be two years older than you’ was her stock phrase and now she was in second place and didn’t like it.</p><p> </p><p>“Please Sansa, really really please, this is important to me so let me tell you when I’m ready”.</p><p> </p><p>Sansa’s acquiescence was clearly grudging, Arya just had to hope it was genuine.</p><p> </p><p>Arya enjoyed a late breakfast and having evaded church had the rest of the day, or at least until evensong to sit and think. This might not have been a good thing because what she thought kept going round in circles that might be summarised as follows: -</p><p> </p><p>He thinks I’m attractive, which is good because no one else does</p><p>He doesn’t think it can work because of our social ranks, which is bad and it’s hard to ague against him</p><p>He was willing to let me look at his John Thomas, which was good because I got a good look at something I’ve never really seen before, but not good if he doesn’t think we can be together because then it’s a bit wrong.</p><p>He was thinking about me and getting sexual pleasure from it, which was good and bad just like him letting me look at John Thomas.</p><p>I've had a dream and that has been good and I'm was pretty sure it came from all the squirmy feelings building up and just bursting our when I was asleep. It would be nice to find out how to make that happen when I want it to, which would be very good.</p><p> </p><p>In the end she went into the library and tried to find something to read to distract herself. Nothing by Oscar Wilde for certain. Was there a book somewhere in here, hidden in plain sight that would explain everything. She tried the higher shelves, but nothing came to light except unsurprisingly books on breeding horses, dogs and farm animals. In the end she brought a half dozen down to ground level, but while there were illustrations that she felt might translate into the human anatomy that served to reinforce what she felt she already knew there were no mentions of the feelings of the animals involved. The nearest she came to that as section on bitches in heat, which made it plain that unless locked up a bitch on heat would mate with any passing dog and when locked up she would make strenuous efforts to escape if she could smell a dog in the vicinity. Chicken wire it also noted was insufficient to prevent dogs mating through it. Perhaps naively she didn’t think she would ever feel quite that squirmy inside.</p><p> </p><p>Then it was time for evensong. Arya was unconvinced any of the family actually believed in God, but it was expected that they should set an example and so they attended the church in either Walton or Emley. Not wanting to meet Sandor until she had set her thoughts straight she went to Emley. The church and the pews were cold and the sermon was tedious, she had forgotten it’s content within minutes of leaving, but the chill certainly seemed to be effective at damping down any squirminess produced by an afternoon of alternating between animal breeding and a memory of Sandor.</p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Sandor meanwhile was having a similar day of mental turmoil. The war had killed any attachment to God that might have survived his father’s zealotry, but the standards imposed in God’s name had remained. He was thus seriously embarrassed, no embarrassed wasn’t strong enough, he was disgusted with himself, with his morale weakness that had allowed him to perform an act of pure carnality in front of such a young woman. That she had apparently enjoyed it, been quite brazenly unashamed of not only looking but talking about it afterwards did not absolve him from his responsibilities, in fact it made it worse. It was his responsibility to help a young, clearly largely innocent girl to navigate a safe and respectable path to her marriage bed. A bed he would not be sharing. It was natural that she should be curious and her nature, the openness and lack of fear that he so admired meant that she might lead herself into temptation. Well then it was his duty to steer her gently away from it and back to the path, if not of righteousness then at least of sensible prudence. Whatever he had to do to himself in private he would no longer discuss with her and any future behaviour wold be beyond reproach.</p><p> </p><p>Having made this declaration to himself Sandor spent a miserable evening, He had never found dealing with women easy and his face now made it harder. Yes he could marry in a few weeks if he wanted to, but only to a woman who was looking for a man, any man and that marriage would be short and end unhappily, there was only one woman he felt even slightly attracted to. At his lowest he wondered if he could have made her happier by in some incredible way getting in the way of the shrapnel that had scythed down her brother and dying in his stead.</p><p> </p><p>If there was a consolation in this it was that after a bottle of beer he was able to go to bed and sleep without having to dismiss any images of Arya from his mind. </p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fate can be cruel to young, or even mildly middle aged, confused love and thus the next weekend was Easter, giving Sandor two whole extra days off work in which to try and avoid Arya.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t succeed. He’d barely finished breakfast and started on the garden when Gertie appeared virtually towing Arya behind her. What surprised Sandor most was that Arya had let this happen, he’d over estimated her willingness to be rude to people, or maybe it was only him she was rude to then.</p><p> </p><p>In reality Gertie hadn’t given Arya a chance to be rude to her alone. Moving carefully and choosing her moment she had caught Arya with her parents, could Arya do her a small favour a job her fingers weren’t up to any more, but Arya has such delicate little hands, it involved repairing some lace, she would show Arya what to do. Catelyn virtually glowed that her daughter was being asked and even her father looked grudgingly satisfied. As they walked back towards Gertie’s cottage Arya tried to regain a little of the initiative.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve never seen lace in your house before Gertie, tatting aplenty including some you were doing quite enthusiastically only a couple of weeks ago, but bobbin lace no”.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s plenty o’ things you dunna know about me M’Lady and unlike you I can be discreet so it’ll stay that way”.</p><p> </p><p>Suitably chastised Arya kept quiet until they came down the path and met Sandor dibber in hand clearly bent on sowing seeds purely of an agricultural variety. His face said this wasn’t an expected or entirely welcome meeting.</p><p> </p><p>“Now last Saturday the two of you spent a good time alone next door and then there were raised voices, you needn’t fret I couldn’t make out words, then after a while young lady Arya comes out in a rush and storms off back home so fast she forgets to come and get her weekly alibi from old Grannie Holmes. I don’t mind being missed love but it’s useful we have the same story about your visit so even five minutes is best eh”.</p><p> </p><p>The two of them kept quiet.</p><p> </p><p>“Cat got your tongues again, or you’re learning discretion at last, good. Like I said a few weeks ago, I can’t be havin’ you two not be friends so I’m thinkin’ that you need ter sit and chat a bit to sort out why it was such a rapid partin’ so inside with you M’Lady and we’ll mash some tea and then when young Sandor comes in f’r’is cup ah’ll go upstairs and find that lace, oh yes there really is some lace and you gi’me a shout when ye’re ready for me to come down”.</p><p> </p><p>So ten minutes later Arya found herself looking at Sandor over a cup of tea. Gertie had pointedly shut the door to the stairs behind her.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I apologise for rushing out, it wasn’t something you’d done or said, well not that you could have avoided, it was my actions that precipitated this situation and it resolved itself later in the night, quite nicely so nothing to worry about at all really. Shall I call Gertie down”.</p><p> </p><p>“No girl yer’ll not, not until I’ve ‘ad m’say. I dunna want t’say this but it ‘as t’be said, like it or not”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya’s heart sank he wasn’t happy, what had she done.</p><p> </p><p>“We canna go on like this, certainly not like last time, it were wrong o’me to let yer talk me inta be’avin’ wrongly. It won’t ‘appen agin, Ah’m ashamed of mesen fer letting; it ‘appen. Now I’d best get back to planting t’peas” and he stood up.</p><p> </p><p>Arya wanted to scream at him, but she was aware that if Gertie could hear through the wall others could as well. She leaned forward so she could keep her voice down “No that’s too easy, a bucket full of guilt and it’s all over you’re not getting rid of me that easily”.</p><p> </p><p>“I wasnna aware anythin’ had started to be ovver”.</p><p> </p><p>“The woods on Plough Monday may have all been a silly accident caused by too much beer in a small bladder, but John Thomas looking me in the eye wasn’t”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay well sometimes ‘e ‘as a mind of ‘is own”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve no doubt, I read a lot about bitches in heat last Sunday and some of it might apply to John Thomas and maybe to Lady Jane too in view of her actions later in the day, but it doesn’t apply to the man holding him, nor to me”</p><p> </p><p>“I’d not be s’sure about that, that’s what bothers me, we start off wi’a few silly games, nothin’ really done, no ‘arm as long as we’re discreet, but then summat’ll ‘appen and afore we know it we’ll ‘ave got ussens and particularly thee, inta big trouble”.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you love me”.</p><p> </p><p>That floored him “I don’t know as I love anyone even mesen”.</p><p> </p><p>“Because I think I love you and don’t you dare say I’m too young, if I’m old enough to be married I’m old enough to be in love”. </p><p> </p><p>“And suppose y’are, where does that get us”.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers, but I do know if you reject me know you’re going to hurt me, a lot, because however stupid the idea of us is it’s the only idea that my mind can find any comfort in. You and I aren’t normal people are we”.</p><p> </p><p>She had him there “No”.</p><p> </p><p>“And you do have some feelings for me, or you wouldn’t feel guilty about doing things with me that you’ve convinced yourself are wrong”.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s common decency I wouldna do ‘em t’your sister or mother iyther”.</p><p> </p><p>“No it’s not, common decency keeps John Thomas soft and in his trousers, you let me have a look because however odd there’s something between us. Maybe it’s not love in the romantic sense, maybe it is more just the urge to breed, but it seems a very specific urge for you and me to breed together”.</p><p> </p><p>“So yer want to keep ‘urting y’usen looking fer summat y’canna ‘ave”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes for now I do, if we do nothing but sit and talk in this kitchen with Gertie upstairs then I’d rather do that than not and for now that’s enough. You must have lived the war on a day to day basis, well we should do the same now”.</p><p> </p><p>That last point hit home, he’d been living his life since the war on the basis of sort today forget tomorrow. “That’s ‘ow I do live, but startin’ summat wi’ thee means thinkin’ abaht tomorra to avoid hurtin’ you when it allus guz wrong”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well you’re stuffed then because you’re going to hurt me whatever you do, so let’s try and have some good days now and worry about the bad days when they come”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ye’re too bloody clever for yer own good. Yer may b’ right but ah’m goin’ to g’t’bed tonight frightened if I say yes to you because I  canna believe it canna get so much worse that yer’ll regret it”.</p><p> </p><p>She put her hands across the table and took his in them, “Is there someone else, anyone even in theory”</p><p> </p><p>“No”.</p><p> </p><p>“Then grasp the only chance you’ve got, I think you deserve a chance and I’m willing to take the risks because I think you might be my only chance. I know it sounds stupid but you smell right”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yer smell of lavender but that’s just soap or perfume”.</p><p> </p><p>“But that wasn’t what I smelt of you, I smelt the real you and it felt warm and comforting in a way I’ve never felt before”.</p><p> </p><p>He looked into her eyes and felt he was falling, they seemed so big and black and they were fixed on him like rifle sights. He caved in “Well it’s on yer ‘ead and it’s up to yer ‘ow it goes, I’ll say n’ more f’ now”.</p><p> </p><p>She stretched across and grabbed him and kissed him and he had to let his mouth open and kiss her back and it felt good, and John Thomas agreed and stood ready for action. It was abject surrender, he knew he was a coward in the face of her certainty and that was it.</p><p> </p><p>Arya kissed him and felt him respond, it was the first time she’d kissed someone properly, was she doing it right, well he wasn’t stopping so it must be good enough. She kept going until she needed a breath then stopped and sat back. “So do we get Gertie down”.</p><p> </p><p>“No because it’s fine having a quick kiss but we need to think about what’s ‘appenein’ next. I’m serious abaht yer not really bein’ in control of y’usen, we need to tak things slowly an’ set some boundaries fer now”.</p><p> </p><p>“We kiss and if John Thomas gets too excited you tell me and we separate while you quieten him down and then we come back and talk for a bit”.</p><p> </p><p>“An’ what are we talkin’ abaht”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve got things I want to ask you. You have slept with other women haven’t you”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay, but not many”, he didn’t add ‘and none came back for a second round’.</p><p> </p><p>“The number doesn’t matter but you know how it goes, including for the woman”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well none of ‘em sat and interrogated me like ah think thy will but ay I think I know summat”.</p><p> </p><p>“Then I want you to tell me and I may have questions and if you don’t know the answers maybe we’ll think of ways of working it out together”.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s that last bit that bothers me; this ain’t like learnin’ t’ read”.</p><p> </p><p>“No it’s more like learning to ride and the first time you’re scared even though you’re only on a little pony but you keep going and once in a while you fall off and have to get back on, but if you have to learn to ride you have to keep going and I think you and I have to learn to ride through life together”. </p><p> </p><p>“Well then tha’d best start askin’”.</p><p> </p><p>“When you rub it by hand that’s mimicking what it feels like inside a woman and the effects the same, the what did you call it, cum’s what makes her pregnant”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay”.</p><p> </p><p>“And you wear a Johnnie to stop it getting into her”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay, you’ve ‘erd o’ johnnies then”.</p><p> </p><p>“I have my own pack of three, in fact I have one in my purse”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well that’s where it can stop”.</p><p> </p><p>“Cetainly for now”.</p><p> </p><p>“How in hell did yer lay yer ‘ands on them, pinched ‘em outta yer dad’s room”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya hadn’t thought of that option, she presumed he must have some, her mother had made it clear that after the problems with the birth, that Rickon was her last child. Well she hoped he had some otherwise it meant mother had thrown him out. But anyway “No it’s a bit of a silly story but I got them at a barbers, he cut my hair and didn’t realise I was a girl so it was ‘something for the weekend’ and I said yes. I’m not sure I could go back and get any more”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, yer can get ‘em at t’chemists as well, but if we ever get that far that’s my problem, it’s John Thomas as does t’ deed so it’s me as ‘as to buy t’protective”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well it would certainly be easier, my face is too well known. But back to what we were talking about, when John Thomas produces the cum, does that feel different”.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh eye! that’s the point o’ the whole show, as it shoots out yer muscles twitch and it feels real good, yer hearts hammerin’ and yer pantin’ for breath, but it’s the best feelin’ ever, and then yer feel relaxed and yer can fall asleep dead easily. That’s why most folk do it at night in bed, helps yer rest as well, though ah knew a woman would insist on talkin’ after, right pain she were, got right upset if ah nodded off”.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t so much a lightbulb coming on in Arya’s head but one of the huge searchlights they’d used in the war to spot the Zeppelins. “I’ve had one it’s happened to me I’ve cum too”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well tha’s not cum, nowt come out did it, but tha’s reached the crisis”. </p><p> </p><p>“Yes that’s a good name for it; because if I hadn’t got there it would have been a crisis, yes”.</p><p> </p><p>“Owd it ‘appen then”.</p><p> </p><p>“I was asleep and I was dreaming, you know how everything’s stupid and wrong but happening, well it was all John Thomases and running and then I woke up and I think that was the moment the crisis hit”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay ‘appens to blokes like that too, if y’erve not had one recently, it’s just like yer wet yersen, too much inside and it finds a way out. It’s the way a lot of boys start”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya was learning so much she couldn’t believe it “When that happens to a boy, what do you call it”</p><p> </p><p>“A wet dream”</p><p> </p><p>“And if a fourteen year old had one, he’d need the sheets changing”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well if we’re talkin’ abaht your brother in th’all ay, common folk it would wait ‘til washday”.</p><p> </p><p>“You see I hear the maids talking and I don’t, well didn’t, know what they meant and they’re probably two years younger than me, so the servant girls get to find out first, but I’m kept in ignorance, Oh!” and she screwed up her fists and face.</p><p> </p><p>“Easy on lass tha’ll ave a rupture, mind yer right the ‘igher class you are the less th’a gets told”. </p><p> </p><p>At that point there was a tap on the door from upstairs, Sadnor responded</p><p> </p><p>“That can come in love, nowts bein’ said as thee can’t ‘ere”.</p><p> </p><p>Gertie came down holding a massive piece of lace, “Yes well I think you’ve ‘ad long enough so those peas won’t sow themselves Sandor and Arya needs to learn how to do repairs, repairs that won’t be done quickly”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya looked at a large shawl, clearly hand made, that had seen better days.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s Bedfordshire and when bits go like here” and Gertie pointed to a loose leaf piece “You can sew ‘em back in place if you’re careful and got nibble fingers. You can even sew and talk once you get used to it”.</p><p> </p><p>So Sandor went to sow the peas and Arya started to sew the lace.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sansa came into Arya’s room as they were notionally going to bed.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s in on it isn’t she”.</p><p> </p><p>“Who, what”</p><p> </p><p>“Mrs Holmes, she’s getting you round to her house as a cover then you run off and do whatever you’re up to”.</p><p> </p><p>“What makes you think that”.</p><p> </p><p>“How willingly you go, once upon a time mother had to virtually bully you into visiting and now you’re down there and with Mrs Holmes in particular all the time”.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you think mother’s noticed”.</p><p> </p><p>“If she has she’s said nothing”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well then I’ve just grown up and become more responsible”.</p><p> </p><p>“So it’s true then”.</p><p> </p><p>“If I say nothing I can’t be accused of lying”.</p><p> </p><p>“So what are the two of you doing”.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s showing me how to repair a very old piece of handmade Bedfordshire lace that belonged to her grandmother”.</p><p> </p><p>“No not your cover story, what are you doing with whoever<em> he</em> is”.</p><p> </p><p>“Mostly talking”.</p><p> </p><p>“Pull the other one Arya, you’re not a talker, you’re a doer”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well he’s more cautious than me so at the moment mostly we’re talking, plus a little bit of kissing”.</p><p> </p><p>“So what are you talking about”.</p><p> </p><p>“What happens, what we might do later”.</p><p> </p><p>“In more detail than dad’s ‘well that’s the mare in foal’ demonstration”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well more about the other things before it gets to that stage”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well come on then, it’s bad enough you find out before me, at least teach me too”.</p><p> </p><p>“OK, but only if you promise not to go ‘Ugh icky’ every other sentence, because it appears to be a wet and somewhat messy process and if you can’t cope with that then you’ll have to resign yourself to being a frustrated old virgin”.</p><p> </p><p>So Arya told Sansa, who still went ‘ew’ a couple of times, and got quite jealous when she realised Arya had actually reached and thoroughly enjoyed her first crisis.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m the eldest it’s not fair”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I’ve got some bad news for you Brans had at least two I know about and I suspect that’s only the tip of the iceberg”.</p><p> </p><p>“How do you know that”</p><p> </p><p>“When it happens to a boy obviously they leave a puddle in the bed, I’ve heard the maids at least twice talking about fresh bedding for Bran after he’d had a wet dream. I didn’t know what they meant then”.</p><p> </p><p>“So I’m the one left on the shelf, it’s not fair how did you make it happen”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya though it best not to mention too much detail “I didn’t make it happen. If I could I’d probably have chucked you out so I could do it again now, but, well I got all worked up by different things, I get what I think of as swirly feelings right down in the bottom of my tummy right round my Lady Jane. I’ve had them a few times, but this was the worst, or strongest and they didn’t just go away”.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t get any feelings like that”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya thought it best not to mention that she had got some, just gentle ones, just talking to Sansa, “You will, you just need to be with the right man, once summer comes and mother starts trotting you round the county balls and then takes you up to town for some of the season in July and August you’ll find someone”.</p><p> </p><p>“And is that the signal, the man who gives me a funny feeling in my tummy’s the right one”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well it’s a good start, I wouldn’t go near someone who doesn’t, but you need to think about other things as well, not just let that be the sole criterion”.</p><p> </p><p>“And have you, with your mystery man, thought about the other things”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes”, Arya said it with certainty and then thought, ‘well a bit’.</p><p> </p><p>The girls parted to their own rooms and Arya settled down to sleep. Could she make it happen again, she felt a bit swirly, so she thought of Sandor’s John Thomas looking at her and remembering the position she’d woken up in, curled herself up and jammed her fist between her legs, and imagined the aftermath the quivering and panting, but it didn’t seem to achieve much and it wasn’t a comfortable position so in the end she stretched out a bit more and just went to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>For some reason her mother decided she needed to be kept busy in the house on Saturday and then Easter Sunday morning they were at Church in Elmley so it was Sunday afternoon before she could get away. She went round to Sadie and then Gertie and then ‘just popped in’ to see how Sandor was.</p><p> </p><p>They settled in with a mug of tea each across the table.</p><p> </p><p>“So when Gertie came in I think we’d got wet dreams finished with, but what about the real thing. I don’t think we do it like the other animals do we”.</p><p> </p><p>“No yer lay on yer back with yer legs apart and the man guz in between ‘em and puts John Thomas into Lady Jane, but before ‘e does it’s best ter do some kissing and touchin’, particularly fer the lass”.</p><p> </p><p>“Why particularly for the woman”.</p><p> </p><p>“’Cos blokes are quicker. If a bloke doesn’t mind he can be done and a woman’s just gettin’ warmed up and if ‘es a total bastard he gets off her an’ that’s yer lot and she’s left there feelin’ more or less tense and with nowt to do abaht it”.</p><p> </p><p>“That doesn’t make sense, why should women be slower or men quicker, surely if was as God designed us we’d both reach our crisis at the same time, going at the same speed”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ahd leave God outta this, ‘e’s not one I ‘ave much time fer”.</p><p> </p><p>“Still the same question, surely a man and a woman who come to crisis at the same speed would enjoy sex more have more of it, get pregnant more often”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well it dunna work like that, I dunna think women ‘ave to enjoy it ter get pregnant”.</p><p> </p><p>“Or the best men are those who will care about making sure a woman’s ready. So kissing and touching and then he goes in and in and out a lot”.</p><p> </p><p>“Agin that’s fer im, fer ‘er its better if he gets well lodged and then lets ‘er rock herself agin is ‘ip bone”. He tried to demonstrate with his hands.</p><p> </p><p>“No I don’t see this in my mind, show me” and she got off the chair and was about to lay down on the floor.</p><p> </p><p>“Nay lass not in ‘ere t’floors fithy and anyone goin’ past can see in”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well upstairs then” and before he could cavil at that she was gone.</p><p> </p><p>Reluctantly he followed her up. “Tha’ don’t want to do this, it can too easy get outta control”.</p><p> </p><p>“I trust you, I’m going to lay back and you’re going to put yourself in place on top of me and then tell me how to move and I’ll do it once and you’ll get off again”. She sat no the bed twisted round and lay then tried to spread and lift her legs, but she had a fashionable skirt on, her legs couldn’t part.</p><p> </p><p>“Gie o’er tha’ll rip tha’ dress”.</p><p> </p><p>“No give me a minute” and she did no more than arch her back and lift her bum off the bed and pull the whole thing up to her waist before dropping back down. “There that’s better, now get John Thomas comfortable because he’s got all tangled in your trousers and then get on top”.</p><p> </p><p>She was right, he had stiffened in an awkward manner and clearly she could see that. He put his hand down the front of his pants, a part of him wanted to turn his back on her, but what was the point, she’d seen so much already. He remembered the mud in Flanders, sometimes it sucked you in and you had to get your mates to pull you out again. The trouble was he hadn’t a friend he dare explain this to to pull him out, he was on his own and sinking fast into a mire of what his father would have called ‘wanton carnality’. John Thomas might be happy at what was happening but the man who carried him around felt he was being used. Arya’s voice interrupted his thoughts.</p><p> </p><p>“Sandor can we do it please, I’m not quite so uncaring about you looking at me with my knickers on display that I want to sit here all afternoon”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay sorry” and he got onto the bed and positioned himself between her legs. It would have helped if her knickers hadn’t been pale flesh silk, they were all but indistinguishable from her flesh, the only thing that was missing was the pubic hair. ‘Focus man’ he told himself and looked up into her face. Gently he leaned forward and lowered himself towards her until he could feel his trousers touching her knickers.</p><p> </p><p>“Now ahm holdin’ steady fully in yer’, now yer want to press the front agin me and rock it so it rubs up an dahn”.</p><p> </p><p>She looked at him, “I’m still not sure I get it, press down a bit more”.</p><p> </p><p>He took a deep breath and let his weight bring him into intimate contact.</p><p> </p><p>She bucked under him “Like that”.</p><p> </p><p>“More of a roll of your hips than liftin’ ‘em off the bed”</p><p> </p><p>She tried again, her hips rubbed down John Thomas, Sandor gritted his teeth, “That’s better”.</p><p> </p><p>“I see, like this” and she hooked her legs round him and ground her hips up his trouser front.</p><p> </p><p>“Ye, fuck”, but it was too late; Sandor pushed himself away from her as fast as he could but there was no stopping John Thomas who proceeded to empty himself into Sandor’s trousers.</p><p> </p><p>She was just congratulating herself, yes that was what he meant, and she was getting a bit of the swirly feeling, so it was right, when she realised he was forcing himself backwards. Her legs couldn’t restrain him and he got himself knelt upright but it was then obvious he’d reached his crisis. His face distorted in a look of agony and his hips jerked forward. Oh, he didn’t look a happy man.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry Sandor that wasn’t deliberate, you are alright aren’t you, did it hurt somehow”.</p><p> </p><p>What was she talking about now, it was embarrassing enough that he’d got cum all over his trousers, but what was she, oh”</p><p> </p><p>“When yer saw the stable lad, could yer see ‘is face”.</p><p> </p><p>“No”.</p><p> </p><p>“Right well, if yer ‘ad, ‘ed have looked the same, you’ll do it too, screw yerself up an’ dina ask me why acos I’ve no idea, that what ‘appens when yer reach the crisis yer pulls a face like yer in agony”.</p><p> </p><p>“So you’re alright”, the relief in her voice was touching.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay I’m fine, in fact if I ignore the dribble runnin’ dahn me leg I feel good. It’s more t’embarrassment at losin’ control so easily. That‘s what I keep telin’ thee yer can get out o’ control too easy, next time it might be thee”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I’m sure you can live with the embarrassment”. She turned and stood up and pulled her dress down then leaned carefully forward from the waist and kissed him quickly on the lips. “Shall we call it done for today so you can clean yourself up. It’s been very helpful. I don’t think I can come back tomorrow without attracting mummy’s attention so I’ll see you next Saturday, or the week after if she drags me off somewhere”.</p><p> </p><p>He started to laugh. “Ay lass you come when you like and I’ll cum when I can’t help me sell, that’s ow this is workin’ out an ah canna see a way to stop it”.</p><p> </p><p>She gave him one last quick kiss and ran off down stairs, he heard the door open and close and she was gone. “She’s like a bloody wizz bang, one minute total silence then a scream and an explosion and then total silence again. I don’t know how long I can cope with this”. Then he realised talking aloud to himself wasn’t going to help. Post orgasmic torpor has set in and he was tempted to flop on the bed, but the wet feeling down one leg persuaded him to get up and change himself. As he was towelling himself dry he looked down at the offending article between his legs “It’s ahl right for thee, thee ‘as all the fun, I get the moppin’ up and extra laundry”. John Thomas declined to reply.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>May morning dawned fine and clear, pre-pubertal girls had put on their best dresses and coached by the local Morris men had performed a series of complex dances around the pole, which had been blessed previously by the vicar. The family had as usual attended the events in Emley and Walton and as the rest of them headed home Gertie had ‘met’ Arya and publicly, i.e. in front of her mother, thanked her for the work on the lace and then invited her round for tea. Arya had graciously accepted and the rest if the family had headed home, with Arya under instructions to be back in time to change for dinner.</p><p> </p><p>Arya was a little surprised to find Sandor setting out the tea things for three, in Gerties cottage. It soon became clear that there was to be no intimate chatter today. Arya got the distinct impression Sandor had suspected a May Day ambush, May Day being all about fertility.</p><p> </p><p>"So there’s a couple of things I’d like to discuss Sandor, I hope you won’t mind me bringing these subjects up with Gertie present”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll tell you if I do”</p><p> </p><p>Ah he was on good behaviour as well, no dialect for once. Right well first do you own a bicycle”.</p><p> </p><p>“You know I don’t”.</p><p> </p><p>“Then buy yourself one and we can meet in the countryside occasionally. I’ve found one in the stables and our driver’s cleaning it up for me and sorting out modern lights, although father would have kittens if I stayed out after dark”.</p><p> </p><p>“So would I, in the dark you’re not as safe as you’d like to think, you can’t make out who people are, but this bike, they’re not cheap”.</p><p> </p><p>“Which brings me to the next point, I want you to take this and either put it in your bank savings account if you have one, or open one with it if you haven’t” and she handed him a significant pile of clean fresh five pound notes.</p><p> </p><p>“Tha’ canna, and I canna tak it”.</p><p> </p><p>So much for good behaviour, oh well. “Look I get an allowance each month to teach me not to be stupid with money and I’m not, in fact I frequently have to bail Sansa out for the last few days of a month. This is what I haven’t spent and it’s in my bedroom drawer. If father finds it he’ll congratulate me on being thrifty and promptly not bother giving me anything for a month or two until I’ve used it up. If you have it in a savings account then if we need money at some point it’s there”.</p><p> </p><p>“And why’d we be needin’ money”.</p><p> </p><p>“Because at some point one of my parents is going to find out about us and I’ll be threatened with ‘never see that man again or get out of this house’ and you’ll get fired, so we need savings to take a train to somewhere far enough from here that we’re not known and tied us over until you get a job”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah think tha’s jumpin’ to a conclusion ‘ere”.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t, we may have done nothing of consequence yet, but if mother walked in that door now, you’d be out of a job. Now if you want to dump me at that point at least I don’t feel guilty you’re on the streets, but if as I hope you’d take me with you then you’d be giving me my money back, or at least we’d be spending it together”.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor looked at Gertie, “Will yer’ listen to ‘er”.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh I’m listening Sandor Clegane and I think you need to make a decision, if not now then very soon. Arya is making ‘er position very clear and ‘owever unwise I think she might or might not be in making it, she is being honest with you so you need to think ‘ard and then be honest with ‘er. Either you can get past your ‘istory in all its parts and accept that this girl believes she loves you and is committing ‘er life to yours and you must accept that and do the right things by ‘er; or you must stop seeing ‘er, permanently and totally and I shall tell ‘er not come to my house again except in working hours when she can guarantee you are in the fields. There is no half way 'ouse unless you are a meaner and more miserable cur than I take you for”.</p><p> </p><p>“I say Gertie, that’s a bit strong. I know what I’m doing and I’m not forcing Sandor into anything, he comes with me and we do whatever we do because he wants to”.</p><p> </p><p>“You are a young woman from a privileged background Lady Arya, you mean well, but you are still very young. You think that if things go wrong there are options between the two of you. I don’t think Mr Clegane will disagree with me, that ‘e ‘as to make a decision ‘ere, do you” and her eyes bored into Sandor’s head.</p><p> </p><p>“Nay lass”.</p><p> </p><p>“Then you don’t have to say anything now Sandor”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay ah do, and yes if tha remains convinced tha want’s me I’ll not let thee down. Ah’m not saying anythin’ more and I’m not bindin’ thee. As Gertie says yer young, tha can change tha mind and I’ll not ‘old it agin thee. I know tha thinks tha won’t but don’t argue wi’ me”.</p><p> </p><p>“So that means we need the money in an account”.</p><p> </p><p>“It should be joint”.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s no way word of that wouldn’t reach my father inside a day”.</p><p> </p><p>He took the cash with a resigned air. “I ‘ope you dunna live to regret this Arya”.</p><p> </p><p>“So do I Sandor, but at the moment I see three alternatives, marriage to some chinless wonder to appease my parents, you, or a nunnery and I am too attached to life to take the nunnery”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not sure what you’re attached to isn’t something more primitive than life”.</p><p> </p><p>“What I’m attached to Sandor Glengane is you. I know you struggle with the idea, for a lot of reasons, some that say good things about you, like that I’m very young and some that don’t, like your guilt about sex for fun and most worryingly your lack of belief in your own worth as a person, but I’m aware that I’m not perfect and I’m certainly not suited to becoming the brood mare for some minor lordling so I think I can make you happier than you were before we met and if I can do that I think you’ll make me happy”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah’m sorry, tha’s bin too much go wrong fer me ter believe we won’t come a cropper and it’ll all end up in tears, mostly yorn”.</p><p> </p><p>“Which is why you need me Sandor because I’m the, perhaps foolish, optimist who believes we can make it work and I don’t think there are that many of my sort about”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah’l grant thee that, tha’s one of a kind”.</p><p> </p><p>“Then tha’d better ‘ang on ter me, fer tha’ll not get another chance”.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t do that ever again, I can speak properly and I will whenever you need me to. I know you’re not poking fun at me, but it isn’t how you speak and if you want me to respect you for who you are then be who you are”.</p><p> </p><p>“’E’s right me duck, you ‘ave a beautiful voice don’t spoil yourself; and some folk’ll take offence, thinking yer makin’ fun o’ us. You can’t disguise ‘oo you are so don’t try”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya had been ready to have an argument with Sandor over this, if they ended up living in an area like The Meadows in Nottingham it might pay not to be so conspicuous, but Gertie was right, she would make it sound forced, artificial and that would make a worse impression.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry, but it is maybe the one thing that frightens me, going somewhere where I stand out as the odd one out, but without the privilege of my rank to sustain me”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah’ve bin thinkin’ abaht that. Tha’d not want ter stop round ‘ere”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I think we need t go somewhere where we’re pretty much unknown”.</p><p> </p><p>“Then let’s think big, ‘ow abaht America”.</p><p> </p><p>“The land of opportunity”.</p><p> </p><p>“An’ more t’ point somewhere the’ll not care abaht us being from different classes, if we got rich we’d be rich and if we didn’t we wouldn’t and we’d live wi oo’ever ‘ad as much money as we ‘ad”.</p><p> </p><p>“There is the matter of prohibition, it doesn’t bother me I’ve learned I can’t drink, one pint or a couple of glasses of wine and, as you saw, I’m squatting in a hurry, but you like a beer”.</p><p> </p><p>“Just the one and I can do wi’out. I were brought up Methodist remember so we were tee total, it’d not be ‘ard to g’ back t’ it”.</p><p> </p><p>“What would we do, I don’t suppose I’d make any money riding a horse and although Gertie’s working wonders with me I still can’t really sew for toffee”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah ‘ad a bit to do wi’ radios in t’ war. Wi a bit o’ money I could set up makin’ and sellin’ summat like that an’ yer cut glass accent ‘ad get us in doors, yer title ‘ad elp too”.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want to use my title, it’s debatable if I should use it once we’re married anyway”.</p><p> </p><p>“We could meck it a double barrel name, Stark-Clegan’ posh fer them as wants to see it that way an reflectin’ we’re equals, partners not master an servant”.</p><p> </p><p>“Clegane-Stark sounds better”.</p><p> </p><p>“Up t’ thee”.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re settled then, to America as Mr and Mrs S Clegane-Stark with a hyphen to make our millions in electronics”.</p><p> </p><p>“Where did the millions come from”.</p><p> </p><p>“Positive thinking, if you try it might not work but if you don’t if will never happen and also the fact that you get five and a half dollars for a pound so that’s a running head start compared with making it here”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll drink ter that”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay Gertie so will I” and they clinked tea cups.</p><p> </p><p>---------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>When Arya got home she had to tell someone, so Sansa got dragged upstairs.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s as good as proposed to me, not actually said the words, we won’t until we can actually get married but Gertie made him sit down and say he was serious and he did and we’ve got a plan where we go what we do,…”.</p><p> </p><p>But you’re not going to tell me who he is”.</p><p> </p><p>“I said…”.</p><p> </p><p>“But Gertie sat him down”.</p><p> </p><p>“Fuck!”</p><p> </p><p>“Not so loud or mother will want to know why you used the unutterable word. I was beginning to come to that conclusion anyway. Once I knew where he lived it was a bit obvious”.</p><p> </p><p>“Have you been snooping”.</p><p> </p><p>“I was passing the cottages and saw him go down the passage to the back”.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s called a twitchel”.</p><p> </p><p>“By you maybe”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well it avoids back passage jokes, which mother would not find funny”.</p><p> </p><p>Sansa blushed “I’d never thought of that”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya rolled her eyes and considered a cum pun, but discarded the idea because she needed to be sure her sister wouldn’t blab. “So is that it shall I go and tell daddy now before you do”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I may not understand why you’re doing it but you’re my sister I wouldn’t do that to you and we’ll always be in touch”.</p><p> </p><p>“It might only be by letter, we’re planning on America, it’s the obvious place to avoid the class problems”.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh”.</p><p> </p><p>------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>So spring turned into summer, they talked, they planned, they learnt more about each other although Arya realised that Sandor was probably never going to talk about the war in detail, they kissed, a lot, they cuddled more than Sandor expected, and the packets of Johnnies remained unused leading to considerable frustration on Arya’s part and relief on Sandor’s. Gertie’s garden grew a fine crop of vegetables and her lace got mended and if people made comment she denied that the two of them did anything more than say hello in passing or occasionally share a cup of tea, always in her cottage.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was midsummer eve and the church had long put paid to its celebration in pagan fashion by leaping bonfires and stopping up all night getting drunk. Notionally they’d ‘discovered’ that it was the date of the birth of St John the Baptist, but apart from going to church that didn’t seem to mean much.</p><p> </p><p>Realising that Sandor would find reasons to say no forever if she let him and feeling that she had the rough end of the bargain when it came to feelings of frustration after a kiss and cuddle session, Arya Stark had her plans laid. With the grain harvest not ready and haymaking an activity that had to stop with the dew, the farm hands weren’t that active in the evenings and the nights were late so a little evening drinking might be engaged in well before dusk, so Sandor got his orders.</p><p> </p><p>“So a pint or two and I want you back in your cottage by eight at the latest”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes M’Lady”.</p><p> </p><p>------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Her parents were trickier.</p><p> </p><p>“The weathers glorious, it’s wasting it to sit in the house and dine in the evening sunshine. Can I have something more substantial for tea and then cycle down and see Gertie for the evening so we can sit in her garden and watch the sun go down”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not having you out after dark, or even close to it, my girl”.</p><p> </p><p>“Sunsets half past nine daddy, but it won’t be dark for almost another hour; I’ll be back by ten at the latest. I’ve got my bike, it doesn’t take ten minutes to get from Walton”.</p><p> </p><p>“I know your sense of timing, make very sure you’ve got your lights properly charged”.</p><p> </p><p>“Daddy, I’ve got a dynamo, we chucked the carbide lights out ten years ago”.</p><p> </p><p>There was a grunt, which indicated Ned wasn’t happy at being reminded that he was out of date.</p><p> </p><p>“And if I take a picnic basket we can sat sit out and nibble a few things as the sunsets”.</p><p> </p><p>“I saw Mrs Holmes the other day, she didn’t look terribly infirm”.</p><p> </p><p>“She has rheumatics mummy, so it’s far worse in the winter, but I’ve got used to visiting her, it’s not as though I have a massive circle of friends to see on a day to day basis, unless of course you let Harris teach me to drive..”</p><p> </p><p>Ned’s response was immediate, “I’ve seen you on a bicycle, there’s no way I’m allowing you behind the wheel of car”.</p><p> </p><p>“So in sensible cycling range there’s the Lannister’s and we all share a view on Joffrey that means that’s not a trip I want to make”.</p><p> </p><p>“And make sure you’re properly dressed”.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry daddy it’s Sansa who doesn’t like wearing knickerbockers to ride in, I’d wear them all day. One day women will you know, wear trousers just like men”.</p><p> </p><p>There was another grunt.</p><p> </p><p>“So I’ll go and see cook about the basket and go straight after tea”.</p><p> </p><p>“Very well, I don’t suppose you can come to any harm with Mrs Holmes”.</p><p> </p><p>“No harm at all daddy, it’s very relaxing”.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>---------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Arya stopped on the way down the lane and carefully cut half a dozen wild dog rose flowers from the hedge. After an hour with Gertie she was round at Sandor’s for half seven.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor was back only a few minutes late, he took a break in the privy, flushed and headed into the house.</p><p> </p><p>Arya head the rush of water even through the thick cottage walls, picked up the roses and put them in place before laying back down.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor was surprised not to find Arya in the downstairs room, he nearly went next door to see if she was still with Gertie, but then he heard a noise upstairs. His stomach flipped, it was mid-summers eve and Arya liked symbolic acts. He had a good idea what she might be planning and he still wasn’t sure he had the courage to go through with it. He loved Arya with his whole being, but he knew that any pleasure they were going to get would end up in a maelstrom of censure and disapproval and possibly even recrimination from her. Her father he could face down, but if she decided he’d deflowered her and turned on him it would crush what little sense of self-worth he had left, so it was with considerable trepidation that he climbed the stairs.</p><p> </p><p>When he stepped into the bedroom the sight that met his eyes stopped him in his tracks.</p><p> </p><p>Arya was lying on the bed stark naked, she was up against the wall slightly twisted with her left leg straight out and her right spread as wide as she could and flopping off  the bed. Her left arm was crossed underneath her tiny breasts and she was gently rolling her flushed crimson and very erect right nipple in her fingers. In her right hand she was holding a Trojan packet in plain view ready to hand to him. He looked her in the face, which was difficult, but he managed it, she made a pouting little kiss towards him.</p><p> </p><p>“Tonight you deflower me” and she waved her right hand down towards her crotch.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor’s eyes followed her hand and there they were, a small bunch of dog rose flowers, pink and delicate petals bunched between the petals of her own under a lustrous bush of brown hair. He swallowed, uncomfortably aware that John Thomas had already decided what he intended to do next and would be making that obvious if Arya so much as glanced at the front of his trousers.</p><p> </p><p>Arya could see the lust in his eyes and the bulge in his trousers; she could also see that he hadn’t moved from the doorway. She would not beg him, but she was sure he still needed another nudge.</p><p> </p><p>“Come Sandor don’t be uncivil to Master John, you are enjoying the view and denying him a look”.</p><p> </p><p>“You know very well he’ll want a lot more than a look”.</p><p> </p><p>“And I propose to give him his fill, he may explore places even I am unaware of, Lady Jane has a yearning, an itch and a hunger, she needs filling and fucking so get your clothes off and let him be about his duties to the lady of the house and you and I may kiss while they get on with the serious work”.</p><p> </p><p>As if a dam had broken he unbuttoned his flies to release the pent up organ and then pulled his trousers and pants down. He stood upright and pulled his shirt over his head, which allowed Arya a good look at the red head caught almost glowing in a shaft of sunlight.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor got his shirt off over his head and stopped and looked at her. Her eyes registered the scared flesh running down the right side of his body, stopping bare inches from his manhood. She didn’t flinch.</p><p> </p><p>“Not frightened off then, there’s them as ‘as been”.</p><p> </p><p>“Another foot and it might have been a different matter; scar tissue doesn’t have much feeling does it”.</p><p> </p><p>“No”.</p><p> </p><p>“That would have been most frustrating for you, but I’ll be honest with you there is something I can see I don’t like”.</p><p> </p><p>Shit this was when it all went to the dogs “An’ what’s that”</p><p> </p><p>“Those boots, if you think you’re mounting me with them on you can think again”.</p><p> </p><p>His laugh was one of pure relief, hurriedly he sat on the end of the bed and bent down to untie the laces. As he did the mattress sank under his weight and two of the flowers fell from the cluster.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that it sir, you have deflowered me and I feel no ecstasy, not even the least ripple of fulfilment”.</p><p> </p><p>He kicked his boots off and hurriedly forced trousers, pants and socks off as well. As he did he caught sight of the end of himself and realised there was a drop of fluid already leaking out, he didn’t have long and she hadn’t touched him yet. He removed the roses as he climbed onto the bed on his knees. He took the Johnnie off her, ripped open the packet and started to roll it on. He could feel himself twitching, he was too close to his own crisis for her good.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah’ll be straight with yer girl, if yer enjoy the first time Ah’ll be surprised, there’s a lot o’me and Ah suspect not much space f’r’it dahn there, there’s goin’ t’be tearin’ an’ blood an’ Ah’m not sure ‘ow long Ah can manage to ‘old on while you get past pain to some pleasure”.</p><p> </p><p>“Then get on with it and get it over with so we have time to let you recover and do it again more slowly before I have to go home”.</p><p> </p><p>He nearly faltered, nearly said he couldn’t hurt her that much, but he could see the look in her eyes, she wanted him inside her and in a second she was going to abuse him for a coward. He set his feet on the footboard of the bed to give him purchase and pulled her down ‘til she was below him. He spat on his hand and wetted the crown then took himself in hand and felt for her opening, she reared her legs up round his ears and he felt her hips push against him. He braced himself and drove into her.</p><p> </p><p>Christ, she felt like he was ripping her apart, she’d been thinking of every erotic image she could, her hand on her nipple had been helping the swirling sensations in her belly build, but that had been overwhelmed by a tearing sensation and then this massive thing was inside her stretching her in a way she could never have imagined. Desperately she remembered his instructions and as soon as he was fully in her and his hip bone against hers she started to buck against him.</p><p> </p><p>He was in her, fully in her, he’d heard an intake of breath but she hadn’t screamed, which impressed him and now she was bucking at him hard and fast. He held himself in place not drawing back, trying desperately to hold himself back, but it was a pointless exercise, it felt like he was a teenage boy again and everything was out of control, he arched his back as the crisis hit him and he couldn’t resist the jerking that came with it.</p><p> </p><p>She felt him go rigid, too soon, things were beginning to feel right but she knew she had a way to go yet and she feel the jerks that had to be accompanied by the pulses of cum into the Johnnie.</p><p> </p><p>He reached his limit and dropped onto his elbows, the trouble was that meant her head was somewhere around his chest, he wanted to kiss her to help her along, but their bodies just didn’t match. He could feel himself deflating, he did all he could and using the bed for leaverage forced his hips hard against her.</p><p> </p><p>For a second she though he was falling on her, but no he was on his elbows, but she could feel the loss of pressure inside her and it wasn’t a pleasant feeling. She bucked her hips as wildly as she could manage, was that it was it coming, harder faster, yes, please god let it,………..and it did, her legs quivered, she realised she was panting harder than any run she’d ever managed.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor felt the wildness in her actions, it was now or never, he pressed down as hard as he could and then she stiffened and shuddered and he could hear her gasping for breath. Aware that he was seriously soft and that meant the Johnnie might leak he got himself off and out of her quickly.</p><p> </p><p>“No” she said it out loud and screamed it in her head, he was gone and like a cork out of a champagne bottle she suddenly felt deflated. She looked up at him wrapping a cloth round himself rolling the Johnnie off and wiping himself down. Was that all he cared; she wanted him in her arms for forever, or at least for now.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor saw the look of disappointment in her eyes, He waved the used johnnie and it’s milky contents at her, “If ah hadn’t tecken it off it’d‘ve leaked and then yer’d ‘ave bin in trouble”.</p><p> </p><p>She realised he was right, “Then get on with it and come back down and hold me, please”.</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t take him long, it wasn’t the widest of beds probably to discourage the single tenants from exactly what they were doing, but he got up against the wall and there was so little of her he could fold her into his arms and hold her.</p><p> </p><p>When he wrapped his arms round her she relaxed, well she’d done it and however much it had hurt at first she’d reached a crisis, so in future without the pain it would be easier and she’d be quicker and she felt so safe in his arms; if her parents had come through the door she wouldn’t have cared.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sandor held her, well they’d done it and despite him being no help at all going off like a teenager she’d kept going and brought herself off. He hoped she was happy because what was done could not be undone. She wasn’t saying anything which was unlike her and the silence began to drag.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you alright”.</p><p> </p><p>She noticed he’d lost the dialect, “Yes, I’m a lot better than alright, I’ll admit it hurt like hell at first and when you reached your crisis so fast I thought I was in trouble but I hung on and kept going and got there in the end and now you just holding me is the best feeling in the world. It doesn’t hurt you when I do that, keep bucking, does it”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, with practice we’ll get closer together, which is good, best is if I can control myself so you go first, then it’s no trouble for me to finish off quickly and next time it will be easier for me. I was so afraid for you, you were so sure it was going to be good and I was frightened that when it hurt too much you’d want me to stop and then it would be too late and you’d..”.</p><p> </p><p>“Shh, she rolled over and put a finger on his lip “You worry too much, it’s like riding at fences, you just have to time it as best you can and trust your horse and I trust you and you didn’t let me down”.</p><p> </p><p>Privately he wished she wouldn’t use hunting references, it seemed too flippant to him, but if she was happy he was saying nothing because all he wanted was to be with her and her to be happy, because then he could try and be happy for her and with her and it was the only hope of happiness he could see in his future. He thought about saying something, but he didn’t want to drag her into his problems.</p><p> </p><p>He’d gone quiet, she knew what that meant so he needed distracting.</p><p> </p><p>“Have I made a mess of the bed”.</p><p> </p><p>“Dunno, don’t care either, it’ll wash”.</p><p> </p><p>“Can we look at each other, we’ve never been naked together before and I needed to get you into me earlier, it would be nice to take a minute”.</p><p> </p><p>She was twisting in his arms, he let go and she nearly fell out onto the floor, she laughed and put out a hand onto the bedside cabinet and pushed herself upright. The trouble was she had her back to the window and was a just a silhouette. He pushed himself upright and then stood up next to her.</p><p> </p><p>He was holding one hand she was two feet away from him and suddenly his size was something different, it wasn’t just John Thomas, everything about him was huge, his feet were huge, his hands were huge. He was also covered in hair, far more than any of the other, mostly upper class, men who’d occasionally appeared in front of her without a shirt on.</p><p> </p><p>“Are all ordinary men”, she was running her fingers through the hair on his chest.</p><p> </p><p>“Nay I’ve been called monkey man afore today”.</p><p> </p><p>Of course the scar tissue was different, no hair and a horrible mixture of deathly white and some darker almost scab like. She went to touch it and he knocked her hand away</p><p> </p><p>“Dunna”</p><p> </p><p>“Does it hurt”.</p><p> </p><p>“Nay just the opposite it’s more dead than alive so if ye’re trying to make me feel good it won’t and I don’t like bein’ reminded of it”.</p><p> </p><p>She resumed making circles in his hair “Well there’s more than enough of you I shan’t go short”.</p><p> </p><p>He by comparison was realising just how little there was of her. The moment when he’d gone to kiss her and her head as too far down, the breasts, still so small he could understand why she didn’t wear corsets or the new-fangled brassieres, they didn’t sag, just pointed out from her chest with perky little nipples, deeply blood red compared with her pale skin. With her short hair her upper body was almost boyish, he was glad he was sure she was sixteen because her upper body could easily have been three or four years younger. Funnily when you got to Lady Jane, she was far more a woman, her bush was curly and thick and in another woman might have hidden everything else. Not so Arya, after him having been in her, her petals were still semi open and she was well endowed, a full hood over a prominent pearl and plenty of flesh, glistening with her juices and then back again to the tiny, slender short legs and tiny feet. If he had been shown a painting he would have denied such a woman existed, a girl child with her mother’s Lady Jane painted on by mistake, but here she was in front of him.</p><p> </p><p>“You are beautiful, more beautiful than any flower because you will not fade in days; you will be beautiful forever”.</p><p> </p><p>She heard him and couldn’t find word to answer him. Suddenly she felt choked up, she needed to change the subject, she turned and looked behind him.</p><p> </p><p>“The blood’s not that bad, either most of it’s smeared down my legs or for all it hurt it didn’t bleed”.</p><p> </p><p>“I think a lot of it’s across yer bum”.</p><p> </p><p>She tried to twist round and look at herself. He picked up a flannel she’d put next to his wash bowl which had water in it, wet the flannel and started to wipe her down. She stood still for the first few strokes then started to lean into his hand so that the pressure as greater.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s nice, maybe you should come round the front when the back is clean”.</p><p> </p><p>He did as he was bid, both cleaning her and gently rubbing her skin. She bent her knees into a slight squat, he knelt down to get low enough and washed up the insides of her legs. As he reached her Lady Jane she squeezed her legs onto his hand leaned forward and started to kiss him. The effect on him was sudden and electric, as her mouth and tongue intertwined with his, Sandor felt himself surging back upright. He broke their lips for a second</p><p> </p><p>“Do you think you can manage another or is it too sore”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m halfway there; if you’re stiff get the Johnnie on”.</p><p> </p><p>He did as he was told, turned back to her to find she was back on the bed, legs parted. He climbed between them and wetted one hand with spittle before spreading it on her. She writhed at his touch, so he brought the tip back down.</p><p> </p><p>She felt the end of John Thomas pushing a little high, put her hand down and guided him lower and he was into her again. This time she gasped, there was no pain, well not by comparison, but the surge in swirling feeling as he filled her again so completely set her bucking her hips before he was fully in.</p><p> </p><p>For a second Sandor heard the gasp and waited for a complaint, but she was already moving her hips so he pressed on to give her something to press against. He was happier this time, it felt good, she was tight and as she bucked she squeezed, but he felt more in control of himself and clearly the handling and kissing had her further down the road to the crisis. He had time to set himself on his elbows and run his fingers into her hair while his thumbs rubbed little circles just behind her earlobes.</p><p> </p><p>Oh yes, she could see now why her mother was scared of explain sex to her daughters, if she’d been told it was this good she’d probably have molested a footman years ago. Everything was funnelling into Lady Jane and she was singing as she rose, her legs pulsing like a horse galloping at a fence and here it came, the spring, up, she could feel Sandor starting to thrust, and over and down and she crash landed in a heap at the bottom with him pounding on top of her, she shuddered again, would he not stop and then he did arching his back and giving two last jerks.</p><p> </p><p>One moment he was congratulating himself on his control, the next he realised she was at her crisis, desperately he thrust to get to his in time. He was late but he hoped not too late, shuddered to an end and held himself inside here.</p><p> </p><p>She reached up and tried to get her arms round him but he was too far away</p><p> </p><p>“Come down to me”.</p><p> </p><p>He lowered himself gently and she grabbed him and hugged him. He stayed there as long as he could, but when he felt himself shrinking he backed out and set about cleaning himself up.</p><p> </p><p>She felt him shrink and realised he would have to leave her. Idly she looked out of  the window and realised the sun was close to the horizon.</p><p> </p><p>He’d just got himself sorted and was about to lie down next to her when she hopped off the bed.</p><p> </p><p>“Pull my clothes out from under the bed, it’s going dark and father threatened me with death and destruction if I was late back”.</p><p> </p><p>Everything that might have been so romantic turned into five minutes of mild farce as Arya hunted for bits of scattered clothing and desperately tried to put them on in a hurry. When she was decent she grabbed him and kissed him and disappeared down the stairs leaving him standing naked unable to follow. He heard the bang of the door and then the noises of her bicycle on the cobbles and she was gone, at which point he found the missing knickers behind the gazunder.</p><p> </p><p>Arya started out pedalling at speed so she was a quarter mile down the road before she sat down on the saddle and realised that without knickers her knickerbockers were rough and she was sore. She rode the rest of the way home with straight legs and arrived at the Hall out of breath and with her thigh muscles cramping. Still she was back before dusk and was able to find her father in the library to wish him good night before going up to her room. There she stripped off and before putting her nightie on examined herself as best she could for any signs of bleeding. There were no marks in her cycling clothing and her legs felt dry so she dressed and fell back on the bed.</p><p> </p><p>Back in his cottage Sandor cleaned up, the amount of blood on the bed he would ignore. Well he’d done it and he had to admit he’d enjoyed doing it and despite the damage he must have done her she seemed to have enjoyed it too. He go into his bed and lay down, now he expected the recriminations to start in his head, but to his surprise he simply fell asleep.</p><p> </p><p>Arya by comparison lay awake, her body, drained, felt like it was floating under her, but her mind, her mind would not relax, she had done it, it had been good, bollocks to everyone who’d ever called her horse face he thought she was beautiful, and she was not trapped in some loveless marriage of ancestral convenience, she could leave Sandor Clegane any time she wanted and he would be pushed to walk up to The Hall and see her father to demand her back. Not that she wanted to leave him, just the opposite, she wanted to spend her whole life with him, whether they spent every minute out of bed arguing and she’d noticed he argued a lot less these days, she would still do it for the pleasure of those minutes with him inside her filling her so completely and the memory lead back to, she had done it, again.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually fatigue took over and she drifted off to a sleep punctuated by dreams she just couldn’t remember in the morning.</p><p> </p><p>Ah the morning, no remorse, but the simple reality of the physical damage done. She squatted over the gazunder and winced as her stream set off little fires in all the damaged places. She also realised she would have to be careful around her mother, who was occasionally looking at her as though searching for some indication of improper activity. She must not wince at the breakfast table.</p>
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<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On one occasion when the timing had been good and then the quivering had stopped for both of them Arya lay on Sandor’s chest and idly stroked the underside of his jaw.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that nice”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay”.</p><p> </p><p>“It would be nice for me to stroke other parts of you wouldn’t it”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay”.</p><p> </p><p>She rolled down the bedding and spent five minutes picking out patterns on his chest. Then very gently she rolled it down further and worked a cross his abdomen. Finally, when he hadn’t said not to, she rolled the bedding down nearly to his knees and laying her head on his stomach examined John Thomas at rest for the first time in detail.</p><p> </p><p>“He doesn’t look in the least bit dangerous like this. I think young girls should be allowed a good look at one like this first, so they don’t get so easily frightened by his more rampant persona”.</p><p> </p><p>“Dr Jekyll afore Mr ‘yde”.</p><p> </p><p>“Quite”.</p><p> </p><p>“The problem is in the presence of a young lass Mr ‘yde comes first and she needs to calm t’ savage beast t’ allow t’ civilised doctor to appear”.</p><p> </p><p>“But if the beast were calmed first, then the girls could be lead in to see it in safety, under supervision of course to make sure they didn’t provoke it and arouse it. Maybe one day I should bring Sansa, she seems quite frightened at the whole idea of John Thomas, seeing him, touching him”.</p><p> </p><p>“Tha would lay me aht fer examination then like a specimen on a dissecting mat, bits o’ me cut up and pinned out fer examination”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well certainly not cut up or pinned down, but in a way yes”, she put her hand under him and lifted the soft flesh away from his belly. Gently she moved it round to examine it herself. “Even now after all we’ve done this is the first time I’ve really looked at him asleep. I love watching you sleep too, you both look so innocent in repose”. </p><p> </p><p>“T’ trouble is ‘e’s a light sleeper”.</p><p> </p><p>It was true, Arya could see the first signs of lengthening, feel the stiffening simply from turning him over to look at him. Idly she ran her finger up the underside where the channel out ran and it was as if her finger chased a moving target as he grew again.</p><p> </p><p>“It appears he’s ready for another round, does his owner agree or must I cover him up and hope he can go back to sleep in the dark”.</p><p> </p><p>“T’ would be up to Lady Jane, if she’s feeling ready to tak ‘im in agin and ‘old ‘im and more practically if we’ve another johnnie left”.</p><p> </p><p>“Suppose we were to leave Lady Jane out of this suppose I was to take him in hand, me not her and kiss him and cuddle him until he was ready to go back to sleep again”.</p><p> </p><p>“Me fayther would ‘ave said that this was a perversion, against nature and the rule of the bible”.</p><p> </p><p>“But this is not your father’s John Thomas it is yours and if you think John Thomas is an animal of simple needs I think he may not have read his scriptures and be perfectly satisfied to live in sin in my hand” and she started to slide her hand in mimicry of his action inside her and if you are tired from your labours in the fields and furrows then John Thomas and I may labour, while you rest”. Arya was fascinated by being able to watch what was happening and just a little nervous that Sandor would roll over and continue in the usual manner and deny her the new experience, but either he was tired, or she had forced a small breach in his adherence to what was right and proper for he lay there and expressed no opinion.</p><p> </p><p>By this time John Thomas was making his opinion very clear by forming a truncheon in her palm, all trace of gentleness replaced by a rigid attention to his duty. “and it is true now he looks fierce and red of face, but he does not frighten me for I feel I have him under control, so let us see how he responds to a kiss” and she bent forward her head and let her lips form a tiny pout on the very summit and then let out her tongue and licked just once upward feeling herself come off his shaft and over the ridge and a funny little bit where it seemed the skin did not want to let go of the tip.</p><p> </p><p>There was a groan, she was surprised, he was in many ways so still and yet a groan was usually a sign of his imminence and she observed a tiny dew drop form at the end of him. It was clear, so unlike the creamy fluid he normally produced, that she stopped her hands while she stared at it, taking in the little detail watching how it formed a near sphere in a way water could not. Mesmerised she leaned forward and with the very tip of her tongue flicked it away. It registered no taste it was so small, but it provoked an effect, another groan. She looked back towards her lover and his hands were gripping the sides of the bed, his back beginning to arch. Slowly she resumed her stroking and on the second time her hand wrapped the skin around the bell he jerked his hips forward and exploded; his cum flying high into the air. Arya jerked her hand down and back and down trying to oppose his hips as he bucked. Two more times material flew upwards then as his twitches lessened the fluid simply oozed out and ran down onto her hand. One, two, three more times, as she ran her hand up she squeezed gently as she’d been taught to when milking a cow and on the third stroke she realised he was empty.</p><p> </p><p>His breathing was very harsh, intense so when she asked “Was that good” and got no immediate reply she assumed the best. Having had his say John Thomas was going back to sleep quickly, slithering down out of Arya’s hand to nestle back between Sandor’s legs. The man himself seemed equally inclined to remain in repose so Arya twisted and pulled the cleaning rag they had christened the ‘cum cloth’ off the head of the bed to wipe things up. She cleaned her hands and the now very somnolent Master John and lay her head on Sandor’s chest only to realise that that was where the flying material had gone, not quite straight up and so was strung across his chest in three ribbons. A more fastidious person would have bothered about cum in her hair, but Arya had decided the process of male orgasm was inherently messy but not in any way threatening so she gave herself a quick wipe and lay her head back down.</p><p> </p><p>The four of them remained in repose for a good half hour until Arya looked at the falling darkness slipped out of the bed and started to dress. Sandor rolled over and opened a single eye”.</p><p> </p><p>“Nay lass tha’ mun stay ‘ere”.</p><p> </p><p>“You know I can’t, I must be home in time to dress for dinner if I’m not to attract attention”.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s ‘ard on a man to be abandoned so”.</p><p> </p><p>“It is hard on me too, but unless you wish to accompany me back to the house and see my father for permission to marry me, it must be done”.</p><p> </p><p>“And if I did I’d get to lie with yer tonight, I think not”.</p><p> </p><p>“We both know not, now you have had a good fucking including a little extra treat so either stay there and sleep or get up and have a beer when I’m gone”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay, there’s no point in crying over spilt milk”.</p><p> </p><p>“Or spilt cream when it is spilt with so much pleasure”.</p><p> </p><p>He rolled himself out of bed and pulling on just his trousers saw her to the back door, there she climbed on her bike and made her way home. </p>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She lead him into the trees.</p><p> </p><p>“Do tha think this is wise”.</p><p> </p><p>“Sandor it stopped being wise the evening Lady Jane opened herself and John Thomas plunged inside, but that is done and we are enjoying ourselves”.</p><p> </p><p>“Alreet then do tha not think it’s reckless”.</p><p> </p><p>“The other farm hands are a half mile away and know better than to follow you”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya was dressed to go out, cloche hat, flapper dress, stockings and suspenders and smart shoes. She lead Sandor to a single tree and moved herself round to the south side where there was no moss.</p><p> </p><p>“Now I know this is tricky but try not to move me too much so we don’t get stuff off the tree on my dress”.</p><p> </p><p>Her busy fingers had his flies undone and John Thomas out as quickly as its rapid stiffening allowed, she rolled the Johnnie down carefully keeping the tip squeezed tight; then she grabbed him round he neck and virtually jumped at him. He caught her and pushed her back against the tree to hold her up. As he did her dress rode up and exposed her suspender belt. Arya went back to wrapping her arms around his neck which allowed Sandor to release one hand to slide up the inside of her thigh and discover she had no knickers on. Leaning forwards he slipped the tip into the entrance and then let Arya slide down and impale herself on him.</p><p> </p><p>No sooner was she down than she started to rock her hips and grind against his pubic bone. As he got a firmer hold of her he realised his fingers were wet.</p><p> </p><p>“Tha’s bin waiting for this, ‘aven’t yer; Lady Jane ‘as been impatient this morning”.</p><p> </p><p>“I took a while in the woods, you know this is the one you first saw my bum in”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah ‘adn’t noticed”, he paused “maybe this isnna the time to make a confession”</p><p> </p><p>Her hips were working hard back and forth but with very little up and down, she was confident she’d reach her crisis first, but she had time to think before that happened “It’s good for the sole, if it’s quick”.</p><p> </p><p>“Last time ah were ‘ere ah tried to piss on thee, because I was angry at yer, ah shouldn’t ha’”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well you missed so no harm done” for some reason the mental picture of him trying to get the stream far enough to wet her was arousing, she could feel fulfilment coming and started to lift herself as well as rock.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor had got used to her method and felt the change in motion and started to pump upwards to meet her sliding down.</p><p> </p><p>Oh yes, crisis point and she clenched her legs and bit his neck as the waves of quivering crashed over her.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor felt her body squeeze John Thomas and the sharp stab of pain from the bite and managed one last thrust before he exploded in release himself.</p><p> </p><p>The problem they both now had was that neither pair of legs wanted to take the responsibility of holding them off the ground, so the next move was a slightly farcical slide downwards, which succeeding in pushing Arya dress up to her shoulder-blades. Somehow Sandor pinned her against the tree and held her from completely hitting the ground for a few seconds and then they fell apart, spinning away from each other, both laughing at the ridiculousness of their virtual fall.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor regained his balance first, while Arya half slumped back against the tree in a sort of squat posture, her legs still side apart treating Sandor to a full and uninterrupted view of a gaping Lady Jane wet and juicy. He walked back to Arya, lifted her into a standing position and pulled her dress back down. As he did he felt her hands slide the Johnnie off and wrap a cloth round John Thomas and milk him dry.</p><p> </p><p>“I really want another, that was good but not quite enough”</p><p> </p><p>“Ah canna, ah ‘ave an ‘aff ‘our fer lunch, if ah’m late back ah get an ‘our docked”.</p><p> </p><p>She slid his now flaccid member into his pants and did up a couple of buttons. “Off you go then”.</p><p> </p><p>He gave her a quick last kiss and turned, walked to the edge of the trees, turned and waved and walked briskly away to the field they were harvesting.</p><p> </p><p>Arya leaned back against the trees, her breath still slightly short, but her legs happy to hold her up. Sadly he was right they didn’t have time, which was a little irritating because good as it had been once was not enough. She turned to face the tree pulled up her dress front and for a second tried to rub herself against it, but the bark was too rough and she had to stop. She balled her fist and rammed it into Lady Jane and tried to twist her thighs around it, she realised bucking her hips would do nothing, but what if she turned her hand, slowly experimentally she moved and was rewarded with sensations, if she jerked her hand up and down instead of jerking her hips, yes that was it, she stiffened her legs to push her back into the tree because she knew her legs would flex otherwise, it was coming, the crisis would approach if she could just keep going, yes , oh yes, oh bloody hell, yeeeeeeees and Lady Jane shuddered and quivered all by herself and her fist kept moving and the quivering didn’t stop until it as too too much and, she let herself relax.</p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there legs spread and locked straight so she couldn’t fall, but  then she became aware of someone approaching. Hurriedly she stood up and brushed down the front of her dress. She was going to meet them, that was unavoidable so she brazen walked over to where her bicycle was rested against the stones and waved. The approaching figure waved back, it was Sansa, which was a relief, another option would have been her mother. Her sister rode up to her and stopped.</p><p> </p><p>“You looked flushed, if I examine your from behind will I see grass stains”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya didn’t see why she should lie, “No, but you might see tree bark so be a dear” and she turned her back to face her sister. She could feel Sansa’s hands picking bits off and brushing her down.</p><p> </p><p>“There that’ll do. So did I just miss catching the two of you ‘en flagrante’”.</p><p> </p><p>“No he’s been gone a while, you just missed me having seconds by myself”.</p><p> </p><p>“By yourself”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes I was much too excited for one to be enough, I’ve been crossing my legs half the morning  in anticipation and then the bike ride, it’s not the smoothest of roads. By the time I got here I was worried I’d have a damp patch in the back of my dress from leakage, Then he came and we did it and it was good although we both nearly fell over afterwards”.</p><p> </p><p>“Why”.</p><p> </p><p>“Your knees buckle at the moment of crisis”.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh”.</p><p> </p><p>“So he went back to work and I was still far to wound up, so I tried the tree but it was too rough and then I shoved my hand in and after a bit of a false start I got things going and had a second one and a massive one. So now I’m thoroughly sated. Shall we ride on”.</p><p> </p><p>The two girls pedalled off, after about a mile Sansa turned to her sister, “The second one by yourself, can you tell me how to do that”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll show you”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, you can’t do that, whatever else you’ve done it’s been with a man”.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think me showing you makes us both lesbians Sansa”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I couldn’t, but you must tell me, with as much detail as you can”.</p><p> </p><p>“OK, but I’m going to have to think about the right words to use, so not now”.</p><p> </p><p>“But later today”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes later today”.</p><p> </p><p>---------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think you’re going to like this”.</p><p> </p><p>“Why not”</p><p> </p><p>“Well I’ve thought about what I did and I’m still not really sure I know why it happened, so what I’m going to tell you is how I do it with a man and you’ll have to work out how you want to try and mimic that. Once I’ve got his John Thomas inside me then I rock my hips pushing hard into his body, so everything gets moved up and down, then just keep going and think of the most lurid sexy things you can”.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that last bit important”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes ,if you think about doing your sewing or reciting your tables it won’t happen, you have to get your head involved. I know I call her Lady Jane, but it’s not like she does it all and I sort of sit back and think, Oh good she’s finished, you have to be doing it in your head as well”.</p><p> </p><p>I don’t think I can do that, I don’t know what to think. I don’t have any experience of anything to go on”.</p><p> </p><p>“Can you visualise me in the wood today, he was holding me jammed up against the tree, my dress was up showing my body off to the world. Imagine you’d come along and had a sneaky peak at us and then stopped and put your hand down between your legs, leaned yourself against the wall and you’re moving your hand up and down”. The idea Arya was producing was working quite well for her, she was on the point of pushing her own hand down.</p><p> </p><p>“No, all that image produces is embarrassment that I can see you undressed”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya looked at her sister sitting opposite her, she really didn’t have any idea what to say next.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll go and try it by myself, maybe having you here isn’t helping. I think I understand what you’re saying, maybe all alone I can make it work”. Sansa stood up and kissed the top of her sister’s head. “Thank you for trying”, and she walked out of the bedroom.</p><p> </p><p>Arya climbed into bed, she just hoped Sansa got a loving husband, who knew what he was doing.</p>
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<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Arya tucked a resting John Thomas back into Sandor’s pants and buttoned his flies. “I’m afraid I’ll be gone for at least six weeks, we’ll be back for early September. I don’t want to but mummy’s got Sansa down there already trying to marry her off in town since her attempts in the country have failed. Daddy will take me down on the train, but he’ll be straight back, he detests it as much as I do”.</p><p> </p><p>“It’ll be good fer yer, an’ if yer find a man dahn there you like you tak ‘im”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not officially out until next year, I’m there to promote my sister’s cause, possibly to be a slightly less intimidating chaperone than my mother. Next year will be another matter, if you haven’t married me I’ll be away from May to September”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ahm sure I’ll contain me frustration”.</p><p> </p><p>“No you won’t, you’ll bury John Thomas’s head in a sock and I shall stain several pillowcases now I’ve found a reliable method, although it’s a poor substitute without you inside me”. She noticed him redden slightly, he was easily embarrassed, she hadn’t realised that at first. There were things she’d like to try in bed and wondered if he’d say no to them, ah well that was for the future. She reached up and pulled his head down and kissed him and they were together until she felt he was getting a bit too excited. They’d met on their bikes in a lane and were stood just in the edge of a wood, neither had time for a repeat performance.</p><p> </p><p>She broke off from him, threw a leg over the bicycle saddle “I’ll see you in September, I’m counting how many fucks I miss and you’re going to have to catch up, so make sure the rubber company profits are fully paid” and she was gone down the lane at her usual breakneck speed.</p><p> </p><p>Sandor got on his own bicycle and pedalled off in the opposite direction in a more sedate manner, she’d just given him some more five pound notes, so he could hardly grumble at being sent shopping. Slowly he was coming to realise that Arya was organising his life and that actually he was comfortable with the arrangement. What a month or two ago had seemed like serious folly now felt good and he felt good about himself as a result. Gertie had observed the previous week, “She’s the makin’ o’ you Sandor, dunna muck it up”. He’d told her to take a man if she found him, she’d ignored the remark, he realised that if she took him at his word he’d be gutted. Well he’d said it, he’d just have to wait and hope.</p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>“Mother do I have to, it’s not as if it’s me you’re showing off, can’t I just wear something loose and fashionable”.</p><p> </p><p>“No it is a formal ball, you will dress accordingly. I am very lax with you Arya, something I’m beginning to think is counterproductive. When you come out next season”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya muttered “If”, but very quietly.</p><p> </p><p>“You will dress the way I tell you and behave the way I tell you and you will try and find a husband. I am not having you hanging around The Hall in twenty-five years’ time when I’m trying to be a grandmother, or if you are you’ll get used as an unpaid nursemaid like every other sad spinster”.</p><p> </p><p>At this point Sansa came into the room, “How do I look mummy”.</p><p> </p><p>“Perfect darling, I’m going to finish off in my bedroom please make sure your sister is ready on time because we are not waiting for her” and the countess swept out.</p><p> </p><p>“Please Arya don’t muck about I want to be there on time, if you come in late everyone looks at you”.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t panic I’ve been getting ready, just giving mother ear ache as I did it. See I’m ready”.</p><p> </p><p>Sansa walked over to her sister put her hands down her corset front and hoisted her breasts up then went round he back and pulled the laces tighter and retied them. “You always tell me not to be shy, so make the most of what you’ve got”.</p><p>Arya was stunned, not at the sentiment but that Sansa had handled her body so casually. “You’ve changed a bit”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes well, I may have moved on, I find after a couple of glasses of wine I can be mildly flirtatious”.</p><p> </p><p>“And are you flirting with anyone in particular”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well there is Sir Ramsey Bolton, he’s only a baronet and it’s all new money, but he’s very focused, he has a lot of drive and he seems to be driving in my direction”.</p><p> </p><p>“Swirly feelings”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m getting swirly feeling quite regularly these days around men in general so I think I need to make up my mind and pick one before I do something silly”.</p><p> </p><p>“Will he be there this evening”.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh yes, it’s already agreed he’s on my card for every third dance”.</p><p> </p><p>“You sound practically engaged”.</p><p> </p><p>“Shh, I have to get him to pop the question”.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on then, we’d better go and let me meet this man”.</p><p> </p><p>-------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>“Ramsey, this is my sister Arya”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah yes I’ve heard of you, lots of silly ideas about equality, men and women, between the classes, still I suppose every family has a black sheep”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ramsey, don’t be nasty. If you don’t want my mother hovering all night you need to be nice to Arya”.</p><p> </p><p>“My apologies<em> little</em> girl”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya’s hand was feeling for granny’s hat pin but her mother had removed it just before they left the house. “Good evening Sir Ramsey, tell me what did you do in the war”.</p><p> </p><p>“Made a huge amount of money supplying our glorious troops and I’m not embarrassed about it, the job had to be done and businesses exist to make profits”.</p><p> </p><p>“So you didn’t serve, what a shame”, to herself she added ‘because you’ve got the piggy little eyes of a sadistic killer you might have been quite good at it’.</p><p> </p><p>“I have an unusual medical condition, nothing to effect my everyday life, but makes military service impossible. Shall we my dear” and he took Sansa’s hand and lead her onto the dance floor.</p><p> </p><p>“Wot ho horse face, playing wall flower again” and Joffrey was passed her with a stunning blonde on his hand.</p><p> </p><p>“My dear, you can’t stand around like that, come”.</p><p> </p><p>“If you insist your grace”, Stannis Baratheon was old enough to be her father, but he was a duke so it was near impossible to say no. They joined the fray.</p><p> </p><p>“You dance well and contrary to that oaf Joffrey’s comment you are attractive my dear. I realise you’re not out yet, but look around you, next year you will be picking one of them and you will have no trouble I assure you”.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you your grace, but I’m not sure I want any of them”.</p><p> </p><p>“It is a sad fact Arya that your birth leaves you two choices, marriage to the richest and in your opinion best man you can manage in this room, or one like it, or a spinsterhood of being the unwanted aunt. I’m sure you are too good for the latter; you simply have to find the right man. If you are a, let’s say ‘forceful’, young lady, then you need to pick a man who will be comfortable with that, there are more of them than you think, some of very high standing; no names, but you know who I mean” and he looked meaningfully over at the Duke of Nottingham’s daughter Cersei, her husband nowhere in sight as usual.</p><p> </p><p>“Suppose I was to marry someone below my station”.</p><p> </p><p>“You mean like your sister appears to be intent on doing. Times change and he’s extremely rich”.</p><p> </p><p>“No a simple working man”.</p><p> </p><p>“Then you’d end up just as much a wife and mother and in far poorer circumstances”.</p><p> </p><p>“But I think I might be treated differently, less like a brood mare”.</p><p> </p><p>“I suspect you’d need to find a very unusual man indeed for that to happen” the music finished they exchanged bow and curtsy and Arya moved back to Sansa’s side while there was short break for refreshments.</p><p> </p><p>“What did the Duke have to say to you”.</p><p> </p><p>“He was trying very nicely to accustom me to my fate”.</p><p> </p><p>“And you put him in his place”.</p><p> </p><p>“No I posed him a question but was perfectly civil. Now I’m pretty sure I have the man I want I’m much more relaxed about dealing with the others. I mean look at your chap, time was I’d have spent all night telling you you’re making a fool of yourself, now well it’s your choice”.</p><p> </p><p>“So you don’t like him”</p><p> </p><p>“No, but you don’t like my choice so let’s just hope we’re both right about our own choices and wrong about our sisters”.</p><p>                                                         </p><p>“It’s not that I don’t like your man, I don’t really know him, it’s just the social rank issue, you think the times are moving on, I’m not so sure”.</p><p> </p><p>The evening progressed, Arya danced when she had to generally with fathers or one occasion a young boy dragged along by an over protective mother, but a couple of potential candidates did ask for her hand and were suitably complimentary, in fact one asked to book a dance for a later event in advance. Sansa wasn’t difficult to keep an eye on, no attempts to slope off into discreet corners and the man Bolton didn’t seem inclined to try and tempt her either.</p><p> </p><p>------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Back at their town house Sansa and Arya compared notes as they undressed for bed.</p><p> </p><p>“Well mother’s happy and so am I”.</p><p> </p><p>“Good then we achieved what we came for”.</p><p> </p><p>“You must have seen someone you could at least consider”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, because they all have the same mind set, they can’t help it, well they’re unlikely to. Look you’re heir to or second son to a title and a massive income, and in this day and age there aren’t many third or fourth sons, the Vulcan rubber company clearly has made inroads into the aristocratic bedroom. They don’t expect to have to work themselves, or in a rather notional way in the city or politics so the idea of a wife who is anything but a lady of leisure and mother is beyond them”.</p><p> </p><p>“So just what do you think you’ll do when you marry you know who”.</p><p> </p><p>“He thinks he can make money making electronic equipment, I think I can sell it for him, or make selling it a lot easier. I don’t want you to take this the wrong way but in the end aristocratic women are just very high class tarts, they sell themselves to the best bidder they can get. All the skills mother has tried to ram down my throat about being amenable and polite and making myself wanted, it’s all sales technique, well I can do the same to a potential customer of my husbands with the advantage that I just take his money via the sale and then go back to the man I love in the bedroom”.</p><p> </p><p>“So, on that basis you can’t disapprove of Sir Ramsey”.</p><p> </p><p>“That he’s made his own money no, that he made it safe at home in England while our brother and cousin were dying and Sandor was getting badly burned in France, perhaps, but if you want me to be brutally honest I don’t trust his piggy little eyes, I think there’s something nasty about him”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I can’t see it and he’s very polite and well behaved; before you arrived I’d been groped and not in a nice way, by several of them. He doesn’t do that”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I want you to be happy so let’s hope I’m wrong and in the mean time I can tick off the days until we go home and I can let Lady Jane make up for lost time”.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s all you think about isn’t it”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, in a funny kind of way I’m missing talking to him and to Gracie as well. This year has been the best in my life”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well let’s hope it doesn’t go wrong in the winter”.</p><p> </p><p>“Another pantomime of a pantomime”.</p><p> </p><p>“I was thinking of something more serious”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well don’t think of Ramsey Bolton and your wedding night and try and get those swirly feelings in practice” and Arya turned the light off and rolled over.</p>
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<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Well as you sow shall ye reap and by mid-October with the sugar beet being harvested Arya could not avoid the inescapable. She hadn’t bled since the first days of September, her breasts were tender and that morning she had got out of bed and promptly thrown up in the gazunder. Any attempt at disguise was wrecked by the appearance of her mother.</p><p> </p><p>“Arya, what’s wrong”.</p><p> </p><p>“It must be something I ate”.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother gave her the ‘knowing eye’ and Arya realised that today or tomorrow she was going to have to know some day.</p><p> </p><p>“But it’s more likely that I’m pregnant”.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother walked to the door and closed it. “The harvest festival ball; please, please don’t tell me it was that snivelling oaf Joffrey, anyone but him and I’ll call you a silly fool, with your brains between your legs, but if you are forcing that boy on me as a Son-in-Law we may never speak again”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well then I am just a silly fool with my brains between my legs. I may have made one mistake, but it wasn’t that one”.</p><p> </p><p>“I take it you got drunk and ended up somewhere discreet in the garden and between the pair of you didn’t have any sort of protection, but you went ahead anyway. Seventeen years of breeding thrown away in a few glasses of champagne”.</p><p> </p><p>Arya’s temper boiled over “No mother I’ve been fucking him since Midsummer and he’s never been inside me without a Johnnie on, so either one leaked or I got very careless with the cum rag and left some on my hands and then put my hand between my legs. So my breeding wasn’t thrown away carelessly or drunkenly it was thrown away persistently and soberly, perhaps I may admit lustfully, for Lady Jane is possibly more addicted to John Thomas than he is to her, but he is addicted enough”.</p><p> </p><p>Catelyn ‘s tone hardened, “There’s no one but Joffrey you can have seen regularly since ………, you’re making this up”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, mother there are plenty of people I see every week, old ladies, servants, farm workers, just no titled people”.</p><p> </p><p>Catelyn sat down on the bed with a thump “Oh God, who then”.</p><p> </p><p>“Sandor Clegane, the Duke of Nottingham’s old valet, who is now working on the Home Farm and living in Walton next door to Gertrude Holmes”.</p><p> </p><p>“Hence your willingness to visit the old ladies in Walton regularly. I’ll bet they didn’t even see you most weeks”.</p><p> </p><p>“No mother I have never lied to you, if I said I visited Gertie Holmes and Sadie Stevens when I said I did and usually for at least half an hour each”.</p><p> </p><p>“And I thought you were growing up, starting to take the responsibilities of a lady of our class seriously”.</p><p> </p><p>“We I was growing up and I’d say the first responsibility of ladies of our class is to breed, and it appears that I have at least started the progress successfully”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, but who you breed with matters”.</p><p> </p><p>“He is a brave man, an officer and thus by definition a gentleman, that he is now fallen on harder financial times is a sad reflection of the class system in this country”.</p><p> </p><p>“A Gentleman approaches a girl’s father and asks his permission to marry her, then he lays her down on her wedding night, he does not take her like, like … a field to be ploughed and sown. I mean even that’s inadequate, a farmer has to rent land from your father before he take a plough to it”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well we didn’t and before you start onto some sort of ‘I was deluded and coerced’ I wasn’t; he did his best to tell me we should not, but I took my time, like the flowers in the meadow I opened my petals and put out a scent the bee could not resist”.</p><p> </p><p>Catelyn’s shoulders slumped. “How am I going to tell your father”.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not, you’re not going to tell anybody until I have told Sandor. Then I’ll tell you and father how we are going to proceed”.</p><p> </p><p>“You make it sound like you have options”.</p><p> </p><p>“We do, he can come up here and ask for my hand in marriage, we can elope, the train to Nottingham and you’ll never see us again, or he can tell me it’s over and I shall leave, feeling something of a fool, but I’ll not besmirch the family name by staying here and publicly leaving a bastard on your doorstep”.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll do no such thing, leave with him if you must, but if he will not do the honourable thing you will come home and we will find a way of dealing with the situation”.</p><p> </p><p>“I hope you don’t mean what you might mean by that, I’m having the baby”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, do you think me that callous, but where and what happens next are matters for discussion to ensure that you have enough money to feed yourselves and somewhere to live. Now are you too ill to come down for breakfast”.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I may not want more than some dry toast, but I can stand”.</p><p> </p><p>“Good well let’s get you dressed and fed and work out how you get to see him later today.</p><p> </p><p>--------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>He was surprised to find her in his house when he got home from work. “Ay lass tha’s riskin’ it, what ‘appens in ye’re seen”.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s too late to worry about being seen Sandor. I threw up this morning, my breasts are sensitive and I haven’t bled for six weeks. I haven’t seen a doctor, but mother and I are pretty certain I’m pregnant”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay, yer’ve been different the last month, Ah couldna put ma finger on ‘ow but different. It weren’t just the number of times yer wanted it, it were like yer were outta control sometimes”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well now we know why so I have a simple question to ask you ‘Will you marry me’”.</p><p> </p><p>“Nay girl you canna, it’s nor a leap year, it ‘as to be done properly” and he knelt down at her feet “Lady Arya Stark I humbly and honestly beseech you to accept my proposal of marriage. You have made my life worth living and I cannot imagine my life going forward without you” and he looked up at her.</p><p> </p><p>Arya felt tears streaming down her face, for one second when he’d said ‘no’ her heart had pounded and her bowels had threatened to betray her, but now he had made her the happiest woman in the world. She fell on her knees in front of him and kissed him.</p><p> </p><p>“Of course I’ll marry you, you and Captain John both and we will fuck our way to a happy old age surrounded by dozens of grandchildren”.</p><p> </p><p>“Ay well let’s get t’ wedding an’ the first un sorted afore we go makin’ bigger plans. Ah’m sure yer ‘ave a plan so what d’yer want me t’ do”.</p><p> </p><p>“You have a choice, You can get dressed in your Sunday best come back to The Hall with me and tell my father I’ve accepted your proposal, or we can get the train to Nottingham and stop in a cheap hotel..”</p><p> </p><p>“Ah’ll not run, Ah might ‘ave done wrong”.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>We</em> might have done wrong, it has been a joint effort and that is what father must understand”.</p><p> </p><p>“As ah were sayin’ <em>wrong or not</em> I’ll face yer fayther”.</p><p> </p><p>“Good then, go upstairs and put on your Sunday best”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yer’ll ‘ave to come and ‘elp me tie t’ dickie”.</p><p> </p><p>“You have a bow tie”.</p><p> </p><p>“Left over from mess dress, dead men’s spare’s it were, got passed ‘round those of us as didna ‘ave one”.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh”.</p><p> </p><p>-----------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>And so suitably attired Arya and Sandor arrived at the front door to The Hall. The footman who opened the door knew no visitors  were expected so his initial tone wasn’t friendly.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, I think you may, Oh sorry M’lady is the gentleman with you”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes he is so he doesn’t need the other entrance. Is my father in the library”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes M’lady along with your mother, the others have yet to come down”.</p><p> </p><p>“Good then if they do please tell them to wait until I come out”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not sure”.</p><p> </p><p>“You tell them it is my instruction and don’t let Henson move you either, again my instruction”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes M’lady”.</p><p> </p><p>Trailed by a rather nervous looking footman Arya headed for the library door. As she opened it she said to Sandor</p><p> </p><p>“Now if he starts to rant, shut up and let me handle it” and giving him no time to disagree swept into the room.</p><p> </p><p>“Good evening father, I’m afraid I have to upset you and probably disappoint you, but what’s done is done. I have set my horse at the fence and in one way fallen off, so I have picked myself up and remounted and I am riding on as I’m sure you’d expect any good Sherwood to do”.</p><p> </p><p>Ned was looking straight past Arya at Sandor and his look was icy</p><p> </p><p>“Good evening Clegane, I assume you’re the fence she fell at”.</p><p> </p><p>“Let me speak plainly your lordship, you daughter is pregnant by our mutual actions and has accepted my offer of marriage. I have come here to inform you of that and ask that you treat her reasonably. If you do not want to then we will go, pack our bags and you’ll not see us again”.</p><p> </p><p>Ned looked round the room, at his daughter, defiant as always but with just an element of guilt in her eyes, his wife for whom this clearly wasn’t a revelation and the man Clegane stood there with all the obduracy of a Saxon peasant on the hill at Senlac; he didn’t want to fight but if he had to it was going to be ugly. He took a deep breath.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I cannot pretend this is the news I wanted from my daughter tonight, but we all know that life isn’t what we want, the Great War taught you, my wife and I that Clegane, and whatever else I think about my daughter, with her short hair and sometimes her trousers and her wanting to do what men do, she has I think learned that lesson today if not before. So you are dressed adequately shall we go in for dinner”.</p><p> </p><p>“Father you haven’t answered the question”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not sure what question that was, but if I wanted Clegane and by extension you, thrown out I would not have invited him to dine; however young lady <em>you</em> need to go upstairs and change, quickly”.</p><p> </p><p>------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Exactly a month later the RMS Laconia left Southampton water bound for New York. Mr and Mrs S Clegane-Stark did not stand on the deck and wave as the family had not come to see them off. Nothing was being denied, but neither was anything being publicised. They had both remained within the house, married in the chapel as was normal for family, although the guest list had been short, the bride and groom, the bride’s parents and their other children fulfilling the roles of best man, bridesmaid and page boy. They had then honeymooned in the very best guest bedroom, the one literally fit for a king should he visit and then been put on the early train to catch their boat. They were in a second class cabin for two, which meant that they had privacy but would not meet any relative or acquaintance on the trip. Once in New York they would travel to another US city of their choice, open a bank account with the cheque given them by Ned and use the money however they saw fit to make their way in the United States.</p><p> </p><p>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Epilogue</p><p> </p><p>Arya turned over the last page to check there wasn’t anything written on the back.</p><p> </p><p>“Wow gran, that was… well I can see why grampy didn’t want it sending to a publisher”.</p><p> </p><p>“I’d have changed all the names if I had and had us go to California or something, even I wouldn’t have wanted the press at my door to get photographs of the ‘seducing English countess’”.</p><p> </p><p>“But you’re not a countess are you”.</p><p> </p><p>“No but that wouldn’t have stopped them, strictly I’m still Lady Arya and it’s almost that bit I’d want to keep hidden. Can you imagine how some people round here would treat me if they knew”.</p><p> </p><p>“Clegan-Stark gets enough comments”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes and it got a few when we arrived, but we used that, that’s why we did it, double barrelled name and an upper class English accent got us connections we wouldn’t otherwise have made”.</p><p> </p><p>“How much of this does mum know”.</p><p> </p><p>“That I have aristocratic family and that I came over here pregnant with your father having been banished by my family”.</p><p> </p><p>“So I’m meant to come to you to learn the dangers of teenage pregnancy”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes”</p><p> </p><p>“But your story doesn’t fit that line, you came here with grampy and made money for yourselves. You made millions, we’re rich people, not super stupid rich but rich enough”.</p><p> </p><p>“Agreed, but my relationship with Grampy was pretty unusual  and it was established over a long period of time and however stupid you might think I was, I was in charge and in particular I felt like I was in charge. Now if you go to Woodstack”.</p><p> </p><p>“Woodstock nana”.</p><p> </p><p>“Wherever, do you think you can guarantee to be in charge or do you think you just might come home feeling used. The urge to mate in young women is stronger than they realise, of that I am aware and I do not think a rock festival is a good place to experiment”.</p><p> </p><p>“No nana”.</p><p> </p><p>“Good then let’s go for a swim. I trust you ‘forgot’ to bring your costume”.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes nana”.</p><p> </p><p>“Good, then I can forget to put mine on too, or are you going to go all coy about your wrinkly grandma”.</p><p> </p><p>“No nana”.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s my girl”.</p><p> </p><p>“Just one last question nana, are condoms that unreliable, or did you decide it was time something happened”.</p><p> </p><p>“Well I had another thirty plus years of active sex with your gampy and only had two more children so they can’t be that unreliable”.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s not an answer”.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s the only one you’ll get”.</p>
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